There are Too Many Weirdoes in this Castle
by logarhythm
Summary: Edward Elric is always sent on missions. He doesn't mind them, especially when they hold something of intellectual value. However, his latest mission to a place called 'Hogwarts' has him less than a little happy and more than a little confused. EdxLuna [HIATUS]
1. Prologue: We Seem to Have a Visitor

**I'm back, writing my very first crossover! :D Yes, I _know_ I'm supposed to be updating my other stories, but I promise this won't interrupt the updates :)**

**I've been reading FMA/HP crossovers a lot lately, but I've only managed to find one decent-looking EdxLuna. _One_. So I thought I'd write one myself :3**

**Disclamier~**

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><p><strong><span>Prologue - We Seem to Have a Visitor<span>**

"... And I would like to remind all first years that the Forbidden Forest is, in fact, forbidden, and there will be a heavy punishment if you are caught entering it or exiting it - the same rules also apply for the corridor on the-" Dumbledore abruptly stopped his start-of-year speech, and the sudden silence dragged the students out of their slumbers. "Ah," Dumbledore smiled, "it seems as though we have a visitor."

Most of the students began to get rowdier, and frequent mutterings of, "What the hell is he talking about?" and "I wonder who it could be!" could be heard echoing around the Great Hall.

Before the students could cause too much of a ruckus, however, there was a horrific crash sounding from the great stained glass windows behind Dumbledore. Most of the teachers either leapt out of their seats in shock or were frozen in fear. Dumbledore remained as calm as ever, his wise smile still placed on his kind face, even as shards of shimmering light hailed down upon the hall.

The wide eyes of the students and staff scattered around the hall grew impossibly wider as they saw the cause of the piercing scream of glass. There, sitting tall and proud on the back of an ashen thestral, was a boy no older than sixteen, ribbons of sunlight flowing loose down his black-clothed back, golden eyes melting into you as if they saw your very soul. He surveyed the students with a hard, but rather dreamy look, his hands placed gently on his thestral's back in front of him, his legs straddling the terrifying creature.

Without even batting an eyelash, Dumbledore's smile grew ever larger. "Hello, Edward."

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><p><strong>Short, I know. But it's only the prologue. The real chapters will be <em>muuuuuuuch<em> longer ;)**

**I've had this idea buzzing around my head for a while now, and I just couldn't put up with the constant buzz anymore. I had to write it! XO**

**You like, you fave. Or review. Or alert. It doesn't matter which really. ^_^**


	2. One: The Golden Boy

**Ahaha, to be honest I wrote most of this during class XD And the last two pages or so I wrote while sitting in the car parked outside a school waiting to go inside and do my Grade 3 music theory exam XD**

**I WILL WARN YOU NOW.**** It's been absolutely ages since I've read the books, and I reeeaaally can't be asked to read the entire OotP again just for this. So there won't be much HP plot stuff for quite a while, if at all. I just needed to have them all fifteen.**

**Also, another warning. Ed's gonna be a bit OOC - quieter and slightly more polite. He's still Ed, though, so don't worry XD**

**And I'm really sorry about the language in this one T.T**

**Disclaimer~**

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><p><strong>Chapter One - The Golden Boy<strong>

There was chaos in the Great Hall.

Students were yelling and swearing, all composure gone, and the majority of the first years either had to be carted off to the psychology ward or were now lying unconscious on the stone floor.

"Silence!" The deafening boom of Dumbledore's voice set everyone in their seats again, but muffled whispers and gasps could still clearly be heard. Dumbledore sighed, deciding this was probably the best he was going to get out of them.

"You are probably all wondering who our guest is." He then continued in a quieter voice, "Maybe now would be a good time to introduce yourself, Edward."

'Edward' swung his right leg over the thestral's back, dismounting in front of the horse of death and landing beautifully in a graceful crouch. He stood up straight - almost formally straight, noticed the older pupils - though he was obviously uncomfortable with the eyes of hundreds of curious animals trained upon him, as his shoulders were hunched, his head was bowed slightly and his hands were clasped behind his back. There was a look of meek determination on his face, and when he spoke his quiet feminine voice rang out through the huge hall like an alto chime, inciting gasps and sighs from every female in the room. "My name is Edward Elric, and I am the newest student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I hope you can accept me." He bowed, his long, golden - for that was what it was - hair falling gracefully over his exposed narrow shoulders.

The students, now over their brief loss of control, looked on in awe. Never had Hogwarts seen a student quite like Edward - especially a _male_ one, noted the Slytherins with reproach - in all history. His right arm, left bare and clearly visible to every student in the room by his simple black tank, glinted silver in the sunlight now pouring through the decorative hole in the wall behind him, and the strong Scottish daylight created an almost ethereal aura around him. His mid-bicep length hair also shone like the sun, and most of the girls looked on in envy. He had the face of a child but the eyes of an elder, and this didn't fail to unnerve many of the teachers now discreetly crowding towards the front of the room.

After a minute or two, a bold Hufflepuff hesitantly raised her hand. "Sir, if he's a student, shouldn't he be sorted?"

There was a low rumble of agreement across the Great Hall.

"No - Edward will be given free reign to wander between houses, and is also exemplified from the school uniform and curfew. He will be present in most classes and will be eligible for detentions and such, however, so please treat him as an ordinary student."

Another brave hand shot up, this time a Gryffindor. "What year will he be in?"

"Fifth year." Dumbledore smiled at the thirty-two hands now eagerly raised.

"I think any more questions should be directed to Edward himself, if he doesn't mind."

A moan of excited murmurs erupted, and this time Dumbledore made no attempt to stop them. He ushered Edward to sit down, and strode over to his own seat at the head of the Head Table. "Let the feast begin!"

Ed paled. He'd tried his best to keep calm when he found out about magic, he really did. It wasn't his fault Mustang had taunted him about it - _he_ should be the one paying for that hole in the wall, not Ed.

And even though he'd now come to accept the existence of magic (it had helped calm him significantly when he was told it only existed in an alternate dimension), it still unnerved him somewhat, and even the mere _mention_ of animal transfiguration had him running for the bathroom.

"Uh... hey," a voice muttered nervously from his left.

"Hey," Ed replied, his trademark nonchalance shining through.

"I'm Ron. Ron Weasley. It's great to have someone like you around, you know. Keeps the girls off me."

Ed blinked.

"Oh, come off it, Ronald. _As __if_."

Ed turned to face the source of the interruption, and found an amused brunette sitting opposite Ron. She caught his eye, and before she could stop herself, she stared in awe.

"My name's Hermione Granger. Please ignore Ron; he's a bit of an idiot." _My __god, __those __eyes._

Ed smirked, and two girls sitting to his right began giggling manically. Ed ignored them - due to his rather... _unorthodox_ reputation, he was used to plenty of attention back home.

_Home..._

"... was just kidding, 'Mione!" Ed blinked as he drew himself back to reality. There was no use thinking about things like that now. He'd just get depressed.

"You alright?" a gruff voice asked from directly opposite.

"Yeah..." Ed mumbled.

The boy didn't reply, but the look of knowledge in his green eyes told Ed he too had seen things he definitely shouldn't have. Ed decided he liked him.

"And _that__'__s_ Harry Potter." Hermione motioned to the boy sitting next to her.

Ed raised his eyebrows. Wasn't Harry Potter supposed to be some legend here?

"I know, right?" Ron grinned. "And he's our best friend!"

Ed smiled in surprise, sipping the pumpkin juice through a straw he'd discreetly transmuted under the table. At least he'd get to know some interesting people during his stay here.

"Hey..." Hermione wondered out loud. "How old are you? Professor Dumbledore said you're in the fifth year like us, but you look older."

Ed choked on his drink.

"Yeah, I was thinking that." It was Harry. _Of _course _someone __like __him __would __notice,_ Ed thought. _Damn._

"I'm fifteen, same as you guys. It's probably just the scars that make me look older. Lots of people in the... back home used to tell me that, too."

"Oh." Hermione briefly pondered the idea that he was lying, but what good would it do him to lie about his age? She quickly dismissed the thought.

"I guess that would explain it."

Ed looked up at Harry, vague confusion on his face. "Explain what?"

"Well, you look physically older, but I was thinking you were a little too short to be older than us, anyway. You're Hermione's height, after all."

The cup of pumpkin juice Ed was currently drinking from suddenly exploded, sending shards of metal cascading down on his nearby housemates.

"Blimey..." Ron was staring at Ed's balled fists with wide eyes, and slid down the bench a few inches, scared Ed's wrath would be turned on him rather than another inanimate object.

"Um..." Hermione struggled to break the tension. "What's your favourite topic, Edward?"

"Ed."

The trio looked at him, confused.

"Just call me Ed."

"Okay, _Ed._" Hermione smiled.

Ed sat in consideration for a while, happy for the change of subject. "I guess... science. But chemistry, specifically."

"Chemistry... I guess the closest we have to chemistry here is potions," Harry commented.

"Sounds slightly less ridiculous than some of the other subjects, at least," Ed snorted.

"Yeah, 'Mione doesn't believe in Divination either," Ron laughed.

"Ronald!" Hermione scolded. "I just... I just think there are more accurate ways of thinking about things, that's all."

"And Trelawney's a fake," Harry muttered under his breath.

"Not you too, Harry!"

Their friendly banter had really begun to cheer Ed up. Knowing that these witches and wizards at least had _some_ common sense in them made him much more open to the idea of talking to them. Maybe he could even make a couple of friends here.

"Ooo, Potter - making friends with the new weirdo to try and make yourself look tougher, are you?" a voice sneered from behind Ron, who immediately whipped around in his seat.

"Malfoy!" Harry and Ron chorused.

_Malfoy...?_ Ed looked on in curiosity, temporarily overlooking the 'weirdo' comment. _I __can __tell __he__'__s __a __bastard __just __by __looking __at __him._

"Having fun with your new girlfriend, Potter?"

Ed gritted his teeth and glared at Harry's plate.

Harry spared a worried glance at him, catching the murderous glint in Ed's eyes.

"Look, Malfoy - I may hate your guts, but I swear it'll be better for all of us if you just leave now."

"Aww, isn't that sweet? Potter's trying to _protect_ me." Malfoy and his gorilla lackeys burst out into jeering laughter. "Maybe he's afraid I'll do something to his _poor, __innocent __midget._"

Before anyone could even tell what had just happened, Ed was standing in his seat with his right fist raised (literally _growling_), and Malfoy was lying spread-eagled on the floor twenty metres away, half-conscious with a severely broken and bleeding nose that looked like it would take weeks to heal.

"What the-" Malfoy started, but was quickly cut off by a deathly-frightening Ed.

"_Fuck __off _before I have to personally send you to hell _myself, _you _bastard._"

The feral snarl had barely escaped Ed's throat before two teachers - McGonagall and Snape - had each of his arms and he was being dragged 'out of harm's way' - each were pleasantly greeted with a '_Get __off __me __and __let __me __fucking __kill __him__'_ in return.

"Fifty points from- detention for a month, Mr. Elric!" McGonagall shrieked.

"I don't fucking care!"

"Make that two months, _Elric._" Snape hissed his name so threateningly even the nearby Slytherins shuddered.

Hermione would've said something to try to calm Ed down if she wasn't so damn _scared_. Who knew a boy looking like _that_ could be as scary as a Death Eater?

Edward eventually let himself be dragged away - he assumed to Dumbledore's office, since Dumbledore was leading the way - but only after a sufficient amount of hurled profanities at the object of his objection.

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><p>The Great Hall was, for once in a good few months, utterly silent. The myriad of assorted oddments had worn the students down, and Edward's sudden explosion had every student almost afraid to move.<p>

Ron was the first to break the deafening still. "Bloody hell,"

The teachers didn't even bother to reprimand his language - for 'bloody hell' was really the only way to describe it, almost even in the literal sense. Malfoy had lost consciousness a few moments after Ed left the Hall, and had been magically carted off by Madame Pomfrey a minute later. Hermione had paled when she overheard her muttering about 'broken nose, broken skull, broken cheekbone, broken everything!' There was still a gruesome puddle of blood on the stone floor - something Professor Vector was quick to clean up with a flick of her wand.

"He just... snapped," Hermione whispered, unable to find a suitable word for her reaction.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "One moment he was just talking to us, and the next moment Malfoy's in the hospital ward. It was like he changed into a completely different person."

"Remind me never to piss him off," Ron squeaked.

"I don't think you need reminding." Harry grimaced.

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><p>"Now, Edward - would you like to explain what just happened?"<p>

Snape shoved Ed forward to speak with Dumbledore, and it took all of Ed's iron will not to just knock Snape out too.

"Isn't it obvious?" McGonagall snapped. "He attacked Mr. Mal-"

Dumbledore cut her off. "That is enough, Professor. I would prefer to hear the story from Edward, if he doesn't mind." Dumbledore turned his face to Ed, his smile gone but a residual calm lingering around him, telling of his patience.

"The bastard-" Ed stopped at the look on Dumbledore's face, and reluctantly corrected himself. "_Malfoy_ was being a real prat - making fun of Harry and that lot as if he owned the world. Then he insulted _me_ and called me a _girl_ and then he called me _short_ and I just couldn't stop myself, Professor."

Snape scoffed quietly at the innocent look on Edward's face, but McGonagall hushed him with a sharp glare.

"I see. I will make sure Mr. Malfoy is punished for provocation, but unfortunately that does not excuse your actions, Edward. You will receive two months' worth of detentions from Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape."

Ed scowled, but made no move to contradict him.

Dumbledore smiled. "That is all."

McGonagall signaled for Edward to follow her out of the office, and Edward complied, trailing after the two professors.

"Oh, and Edward?"

Edward lazily turned his head sideways, not bothering to turn around fully.

"Try to stay out of trouble." Dumbledore's mischievous smile immediately brightened Edward's festering bad mood, as he planned on doing everything he could to do the opposite. Edward Elric wasn't one for staying still, after all.

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><p>Ed was already waiting in the Gryffindor common room by the time the trio arrived. He was huddled in front of the roaring red fire, his knees drawn up to his square chin with an open book (quite a thick one, too) resting precariously on them. He seemed incredibly concentrated on the book in front of him; his eyebrows were furrowed slightly and his mouth was set in a firm line. He seemed so deep in thought, in fact, that Harry was almost afraid to disturb him.<p>

"Um... Ed?"

Ed lurched forward and his head whipped around so fast it cracked, wild panic in his molten eyes. "Oh... It's just you." Ed sighed and returned his undying attention to the yellowed pages of the thick textbook in front of him that had somehow miraculously not fallen off.

Ron slumped gracelessly on the battered red sofa a few feet behind Ed, sighing mournfully at the 'ridiculous' amount of homework he would surely receive the next day.

There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes - though that may have just been because Ron was too lazy to interrupt it - and it was relished by the room's four occupants. Harry was studying for the Potions test they had the next day at the desk table in the corner of the room closest to the fireplace, whereas Hermione was hovering discreetly around Ed, obviously dying to ask him a question.

"What?" Ed deadpanned, catching the hint.

"Oh! Well, I was just wondering what you were reading. It doesn't look like an ordinary novel..." Hermione trailed off, prompting Ed to explain.

Ron rolled his eyes and looked at Harry, who smirked. _Of _course _she __would __be __interested._

Ed carried on reading, but roughly lifted the book so that Hermione could get a decent view of the cover as she bent around to see it.

Her eyes widened. "'_Advanced __Arithmancy__'__...?_"

Ron blinked in awe. Who in their right goddamn minds actually studied that stuff _willingly_?

Hermione's face lit up after a few moments. "How far have you got through it? What do you think of it?"

"The numbers are fine - it's the 'magical' element part that's shit."

"Really? It's one of my favourite subjects. Even if you don't believe in the magical qualities, at least Arithmancy is better than Divination."

Ed crumpled his face up, and obvious sign of agreement. "I guess so. And the theory behind it is rather interesting, I must admit."

Hermione seemed to be barely containing her joy. Not only had she found someone who cherished studying as much as she did, but he was _also_ interested in Arithmancy, a subject most people thought boring and difficult!

"How can you understand that? I don't get a bloody word of it."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That's because you don't attend the classes."

"Neither do you!"

"But at least I was smart enough to figure out what 'transfiguration' meant."

"Shut up!"

Everyone (except Ron, of course) burst out in raucous laughter, Ed included, to his surprise. It was a huge relief; Ed had barely even cracked a smile since he'd arrived. Being able to enjoy himself, if only for a few minutes, lifted a good deal of the ten-ton weight on his narrow shoulders.

Ed turned back to his book. It really _was_ genuinely rather interesting, actually, despite the lack of scientific accuracy, and Ed found himself easily engulfed in it. He sighed. _This_ at least had numbers and scientific - _just_ barely - theorems to it - whereas Divination was a whole other story. For some reason that he just could not comprehend, there were witches and wizards out there who believed Divination was real. Sure, magic existed, but magic and fortune-telling were two _completely_ different things. Ed chuckled wearily. _These __wizards_, he mused. _I__'__ll __never __understand __them._

By the time Ed's train of thought had ceased flowing and his mind had returned to its natural blank state, the common room was more crowded that Ed could have considered possible. Though, Ed noted with a certain smugness, everyone had tried their very best to give him as wide a berth as they could manage. He smirked. _Looks __like __my __little __conversation __with __Malfoy __has __them __all __scared __shitless. __Well, _he thought after a minute's consideration, _I__'__ll __give __Ron __and __his __bunch __credit __for __actually __sticking __around __me __after __that. __Not __many __people __have __the __guts __to, __even __in __the __military._

Ed glanced up slowly, staring long and hard at the shimmering flames licking at the soot as if it was sherbet. It almost seemed to be dancing - like some foreign dance you might see at a party in a prince's palace. It was dangerous and the fireplace itself was rather filthy, but it sort of gave a homey feeling, as if it was welcoming you to jump right in so it could devour you whole. _Rather __like __Mustang,_ Ed thought. A thoughtful smile played at the corners of his lips as he realised the absurdity of his situation. _I __think __I __might __be __going __as __crazy __as __these __nut __jobs. __To __think __I__'__m __actually __beginning __to __miss __the __bastard._ Ed sighed in defeat, attracting a few curious (or in some cases, infatuated) glances from around the open room.

To Ed's surprise, despite being crowded, the Gryffindor common room was actually fairly quiet. The dull hum of friendly voices and muffled laughter was like a lullaby to the boy who survived on four hours' sleep a night and lived off coffee (to his fury, it turned out that these wizards knew nothing of the life-saving brew), and before he knew it he was falling sideways onto the warm, red rug.

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><p><strong>Aww! :3 Yay, first proper chapter up. How was it? More responses = quicker update, remember. ;)<strong>

**I managed to just get past the 3000-word mark on this one (if you don't include the 800-word author's notes), and I was quite pleased. I try to keep my chapters long but not too long, y'know?**

**Luna will arrive in the next chapter, I promise! :) The next chapter's less action-packed and more explanatory - after all, we still don't know why on earth Ed's there in the first place! (To be honest, neither do I.)**


	3. Two: An Accidental Meeting

**Hello~ Quite a quick update, especially for me! :D I guess that's because I enjoy writing this so much~ X3**

**My my, last chapter was so popular! I feel so loved T.T *sniff sniff***

**Finally, we meet Luna~ :)**

****(If you're interested, this chapter lived most of its life on my computer as 'ztdsd'. XD)****

**Disclaimer~**

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><p><strong>Chapter Two - An Accidental Meeting<strong>

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." A sweet girl's voice penetrated the whiteness. That was not a good thing, he decided. He liked the whiteness. It was nothing and something and everything at the same time, and he felt safe. He didn't want to return to reality where he knew he was supposed to do something and supposed to remember something and supposed to play the part like a good little liar. "Come on, wake up." Her voice was somewhat husky but unbearably sweet - friendly and encouraging and wishing he was awake so she had someone to talk to.

_Like __Alphonse_.

Ed sat bolt upright in the firm bed without warning, causing a boy leaning over him to fall backwards and yelp in shock. He didn't pay any heed to it. He sighed - he felt better than he usually did after waking up. He spared a tired glance at the digital alarm clock - _7:36_. So he'd slept for, what, nearly ten hours? Wow. That might've been the reason he was in such a good mood.

Ed finally registered Hermione standing by his beside - since when were girls allowed in the boys' dorm? - looking a little startled, but none to worse for wear, unlike the boy now staggering back to his own bed for a lie-in. Ed smiled sleepily at her.

"Mornin'," Ron yawned, earning a tired chuckle from Ed. Harry was already up and dressed, as was Hermione. They seemed to be the only two so far. Well, he'd be the third as soon as he could find hid boots.

He realised as he was searching that he'd fallen asleep in the common room yesterday - no wonder he woke up fully-clothed and on top of the covers.

"Over 'ere, mate," Ron drawled, also dragging himself painfully out of bed. They did have class, after all, and Ron knew Hermione (as well as the teacher) would scold him if he was late.

"Right, thanks," Ed murmured as he grabbed the tattered leather boots by the foot of Ron's bed. _Why __on __earth __were __they __over __here?_

Ed gracelessly slipped his leather boots on and stumbled to rush after Hermione, who was by this time striding out of the open door and down the stairs to the common room, where she picked up a thick textbook of her choice and continued on to the Great Hall. Ed picked up a book as well, earning a few odd looks from the early-risers, but he paid them no heed. He would do what he liked, thank you very much.

Ron and Harry joined them ten minutes later at the Gryffindor table. Both Ed and Hermione had their noses stuffed in their respective textbooks, and Harry and Ron exchanged weary yet amused glances.

"Hey, you two," Harry chuckled.

"You two are just _weirdoes_, you know?" Ron laughed, but quickly turned his snickers into unsubtle coughs after Hermione hacked him round the head with her book.

"What are you reading?" Harry inquired, slipping gracefully into the seat to Hermione's right.

"I found an interesting book in the library - no, don't look at me like that, Ronald - and I knew I just _had_ to read it."

Harry was intrigued, to say the least. "What's it about?"

"Alchemy."

There was a suspiciously sudden coughing fit from Ed's direction, and when the trio looked at him in surprise, his face was terribly scrunched up and his eyes were almost melting the poor book in front of him with the intensity of his glare.

"Isn't alchemy a dead art?"

"No, Harry - at least, in other worlds it isn't."

"Other worlds?" Ron gasped, unable to keep the awe out of his voice, suddenly finding himself drawn into the intellectual conversation.

"Yes. Apparently there are an indefinite number of other worlds and universes out there; we just don't know how to get to them. Although there is one other universe officially confirmed as of a few weeks ago."

"Wow." Ron gaped, leaning over the wooden table from his seat next to Ed in a desperate attempt to see what Hermione was reading.

"That's amazing," Harry breathed, now also totally engrossed in the book Hermione was clutching onto for dear life.

"What do you think, Ed?"

Ed flinched at the expected question from Ron.

"... Are you okay?" Harry asked, wondering what on earth was wrong with Ed's unpredictable behaviour. He questioned him with caution, however; after all, after the Malfoy incident, who knew what Ed was capable of?

"I'm fine," Ed whispered after a noticeably long pause.

"Oh... okay." Hermione wisely dropped the subject at hand, returning her attention to its source - '_A __History __of __Alchemy_'. Harry did the same, knowing it was probably best not to push Ed more than necessary - who knew what could set him off? And Harry certainly didn't want to end up like poor Malfoy. Not that he didn't enjoy every second of it, mind you.

What must've been numerous minutes later, Dumbledore finally entered the Great Hall, fashionably late. He had everyone's full attention immediately. "Let the first breakfast of the new year begin!" he boomed.

Everyone cheered happily, glad to finally get something in their starved stomachs. People were gasping and drooling at the innumerable delicacies magically appearing on the dark, wooden tables. Well, everyone except Ed, that is. But that was to be expected from a muggle-born, right?

Ed prodded the food with his silver fork, and after watching Ron shove every mildly edible thing into his gigantically large mouth with a hawk's eye for a minute or two, he deemed the food edible and dug in manically himself. He received quite a few wide eyes as he loaded his plate with a near five-inch pile of assorted foods, and gaping mouths when he then proceeded to inhale the delicacies, leaving many hushed whispers (and an empty plate) in his wake.

"Wow, Ed. You, uh... eat a lot." Harry chuckled nervously, somewhat in awe at the sheer amount of food being forced into Ed's skinny waistline.

"Yeah," Ed said through a mouthful of chicken. "Lots of people tell me that."

"I'm not surprised." Hermione laughed.

Ed smirked.

"Hey, Ed." Hermione looked like an important thought had just recently been remembered.

"Mmph?"

"You don't know your way around Hogwarts, do you? I reckon you haven't even been given a tour." Hermione glanced at him, briefly making eye contact.

Ed swallowed his mouthful of Yorkshire pudding before answering. "No, actually, come to think of it. And I guess it doesn't help that I don't have a brilliant sense of direction," he murmured, although the last part was mainly to himself.

"In which case, it's decided," Hermione chirped with an air of finality. "We'll show you around on the way to and between classes today." She smiled, obviously pleased with the outcome of events. This would mean she would be able to ask him more questions about his studying!

Ed smirked. "Sure."

"Am I coming?" Ron moaned.

"Yes, Ron! Why _wouldn__'__t_ you be coming?"

Ron groaned. Harry snickered.

"Anyway, I think we should start heading to class now," Hermione sighed, gathering her book into her arms and cradling it to her chest.

"Yeah, wouldn't want to upset the great Lord Snape now, would we?" Ron mocked as he trailed after her, shoulders slouching in reluctant defeat.

"Why not?" Ed asked nonchalantly as he regretfully closed his book.

"Because Snape is the Devil himself," Ron hissed.

"Ron, you're exaggerating."

"No I'm not, 'Mione, and you know it."

Ed smirked. He'd dealt with far worse teachers than this supposed Snape guy before. An icy chill snaked down his spine at the memories that had begun to dredge themselves up out of his metaphorical 'memories to be forgotten and never remembered again' box. "No, really. This Snape guy really isn't the Devil. Trust me."

"You seem to speak from experience, Ed," Harry joked.

Ed turned to look Harry straight in the eye, a deadly serious expression spreading onto his face. "I do."

Harry stopped laughing.

There was an almost frightening silence from then until they reached the dreaded dungeon - right on time, too, as Snape was currently in the process of shooing all the students into the classroom.

"In, in. You three too," Snape snarled before striding obnoxiously back into his 'classroom', which you could hardly call a classroom at all, really.

Ed smirked as he strolled in. _This __is __gonna __be __fun._

"Now - I am aware that Potter and Longbottom were absent during the test last year? Well, you two will go sit in the hall and take the test in silence. If either of you even _attempt_ to _think_ about cheating, you will fail. Am I understood?"

There was a slight bit of barely perceptible nodding before they both rushed out of the classroom - obviously eager to get out of under Snape's watchful eye as quickly as possible.

_This __is _definitely _going __to __be __fun_.

"The rest of you will be doing a practical - specifically, I want you to make a _working_ sleeping potion." Snape emphasised the word 'working' heavily - he was obviously used to a class of failures.

Ed frowned. He wasn't stupid. In fact, he was bloody brilliant. And by the end of this lesson, Snape would know it.

"Turn to page fifty-two."

The class obeyed.

"Use these ingredients and this recipe. You have your cauldrons with you, correct? Good. Elric, you will borrow the spare. Start," Snape hissed, and the nervous classed sprang into action. People crowded around the front desk trying to get their ingredients before everyone else - after all, if they finished their potion last, Snape would surely punish them.

Ed, however, merely sauntered over to the cauldron, wrinkled his nose at it in distain, and carried it by his automail fingertips back to his workbench as if it carried some horrendous disease.

Snape noticed his behaviour, and immediately began hounding him for it. "What are you doing, Elric? In case you haven't noticed, this is a _classroom_, where you _learn._ You will not learn anything if you continue to act like a spoiled brat."

Ed pulled a face at Snape's black-robed back as he spun around on his heel, but refrained from making a verbal comment. No, actions spoke louder than words.

Edward was the last to collect his ingredients. Now not only was he getting derogatory glances from Snape, but he was also gaining quite a bit of frightened attention from his fellow students. They were sending him '_just-do-what-he-says-and-you__'__ll-live__'_ looks that Ed did not like one bit. If there was anything Ed excelled in, it was staying alive.

Well, that and making people hate him.

_Number __five-hundred __and __fifty-six __in __Edward __Elric__'__s__ '__Book __of __How __to __Get __People __to __Hate __You__'__: __say __something __rude, __disrespectful __and __insulting __but __undeniably __genius, __and __then __walk __away __as __if __you __really __couldn__'__t __care __less __about __what __they __think._

"What on earth do you think you're doing, Elric? You're completely ignoring the textbook and- _why __are __you __putting __soy __sauce __in __your __cauldron!_"

Ed sighed in a mock-frustrated manner. "Obviously, Professor, you've never heard of something called 'chemistry'. The chemical make-up of the blue radish root and the mandrake leaf is exactly the same as soy sauce, so I thought I would save you useful ingredients and use my own instead. Really, Professor - I would've thought someone as renowned as you would know _that_." Ed sniffed pompously and strode back to his cauldron, which he had abandoned for effect during the conversation, with his hands in his pockets, joyously whistling tunelessly, and returned to adding soy sauce to his textbook-perfect sleeping potion.

Snape's face was absolutely priceless. The students who weren't now petrified that he would put the whole class in detention were really trying their very best to not start sniggering - and failing miserably. Luckily, Snape's focus was fully on Ed, so the stifled laughs went unnoticed.

"... What?" was Snape's only coherent reaction.

Ed smirked, before leaning over his potion and announcing in a sing-song voice, "Ooh, is the potion supposed to turn sky blue?"

Of course, it was.

* * *

><p>"That's was bloody brilliant!" Ron gawked as they scurried out of the classroom, collecting Harry on the way.<p>

"What was?" Harry asked, having not seen the class.

Ron then proceeded to rush into a flurry of explanations and events that occurred during their Potions class, describing Ed's 'heroic win' in meticulous detail.

Ed tuned out the conversation. To be honest, hearing his various accomplishments was rather boring. He was famous for them back home, and had numerous people constantly relaying his own teenage world-saving antics back to him, and he was rather sick of it. And proving Snape wrong was such a minimal achievement anyway - nothing compared to combating death itself. He didn't see why Ron was so obsessed about it. Although, Ed admitted, it _had_ been pretty funny.

"Oh, Ed!" Hermione started, cutting Ron off mid-rant.

"Mm?" Ed responded dreamily, still engulfed in his own world and thought processes.

"I was gonna give you that tour, wasn't I?"

Ed blinked. "Oh yeah."

"Well, through that corridor is the exit to the field where the first-years practice flying-" Hermione gestured to a corridor a few metres away- "and that staircase leads to the third floor. But I wouldn't recommend going up there - Filch is always skulking about up there, and you get yourself in a real mess if you get caught."

Ed nodded, taking mental notes.

"That's the staircase to the Astronomy tower, up there, and we're walking right past the Muggle Studies classroom right now."

"I see."

Ron joined in. "And those are my brothers, they're twins - Fred and George - and they're _always_ playing pranks on people."

"I'd suggest staying out of their way if you don't want to be humiliated," Hermione whispered.

Ed nodded again. "Anything else I should know about?"

"Um, not really... Oh! Look, Harry, it's Luna Lovegood."

Harry suddenly seemed very nervous.

"Luna Lovegood?"

Hermione smiled at Ed. "Yes. She's in Ravenclaw-"

"The house with all the nerds," Ron cut in.

"Ronald!"

"Just sayin', 'Mione."

Hermione sighed. "Anyway, she's in Ravenclaw. She's a little... _strange_, and I would advise not believing everything she says. She has a habit of making all sorts of creatures up off the top of her head."

"She's crazy," Ron muttered.

Hermione shot a glare at Ron, and he swiftly shut up and looked to his feet, which had suddenly become extremely interesting. "Everyone thinks she's... well, not quite right in the head. That's why they call her Loony Lovegood."

Ed raised an eyebrow.

"Her father's the head of the newspaper _The __Quibbler_, too." Harry commented, a neutral look on his face.

"... I see." Ed murmured after a short pause. He discreetly stared at Luna as he walked past - she had white blond thick curly hair and she appeared to be talking to a plant. _No __wonder __they __call __her __crazy_.

They were each deep in their own thoughts as they made the rest of their way to History of Magic, and it seemed like no time at all before they were standing outside the musty second-floor classroom. Professor Binns hurriedly ushered them in, and Ed gave him a rather strange look, to which he merely smiled.

_Why __the __hell __is __a _ghost _teaching?_

The lesson lived up to Ron's explanation, word for word - something that Ed had not expected to happen, since his description of homework was 'ridiculous' and Potions 'impossible'. However, History of Magic really was boring enough to fall asleep in. And coming from Ed, someone who enjoyed reading complicated scientific formulas in his free time, that was saying a lot.

Ed had fazed out by only five minutes into the lesson - he'd miraculously lasted longer than the majority of the class, three students of which had fallen asleep before four minutes in, Ron included.

Ed absently watched the first years haphazardly flying on their brooms from his window seat. They seemed to be having so much fun. _Something __I __need __much __more __of._ Ed frowned. _I __wish __Al __was __here. __He__'__d __fit __right __in __- __make __loads __of __friends, __too. __Why __couldn__'__t __the __bastard __Colonel __send __him __on __this __mission __instead? __We __all __know __he__'__d __be __much __better __suited __to __it. _Ed sighed. _Oh, __right __- __Al __isn__'__t __in __the __military._

Ed slouched further into his chair, sighing mournfully to himself. He really had to stop this whole 'thinking too much' thing. It always made him depressed. He needed something to do, something to take his mind off things - that's what he always did before, and it worked. Except now, he was stuck in a classroom, unable to do anything except either daydream or fall asleep. And he knew he'd just end up having a nightmare if he fell asleep.

_I __hate __this __mission,_ he decided.

'This mission' was a mission Ed had been sent on a few weeks ago by Mustang. He was supposed to blend in with the other students, mingle with them to try to get information. He was supposed to passively protect the school while still staying undercover and report weekly to the Colonel on its safety and list all possible threats. He was also supposed to perfect the art of 'space-travel' (travel between universes) so that the military could utilize it for their use. Mustang had also added on a side note that he should see whether time travel was possible over in this universe, and if it was, whether the conditions were right for time travel in Amestris, too.

It was all rather stupid, in Ed's opinion.

Ed spent most of his time in class and with students assessing their fighting ability and discreetly worming information out of them, leaving hardly any time to concentrate on the actual lessons he was in. This, of course, had to be caught up after class, as well as the previous four years' worth of studies, and, of course, homework. The rest of his free time was left to researching space- and time-travel without attracting attention from the librarian, who had an annoying habit of asking what 'on earth he was reading that for'. He would then scrawl a mission report to Mustang and a letter to Al and Winry, hopefully before midnight, and then go out onto the grounds to do an hour or two's exercise to keep in shape. This left him around four hours of sleep before he was up again, pretending and acting and pretending some more.

Obviously, it was emotionally as well as physically draining for Ed. Having to constantly pretend you're someone you're not while performing a subtle interrogation of other people was not easy, especially when you aren't naturally good with people. And Ed was about as much of a hermit as you could get.

Why did they send Ed instead of a member of the Interrogations Department? Because no one else in the military was below twenty-two, and thus could not pull off fifteen like Ed could.

In all honesty, Ed wasn't fifteen. He was eighteen. He just happened to look fifteen, something that was incredibly useful as far as disguise for missions was concerned. _If __there__'__s __one __good __thing __about __all __of __this, _Ed mused_, __it__'__s __that __at __least __my __height __doesn__'__t __stand __out __here._ Because, obviously, an eighteen-year-old is generally accepted as taller than a fifteen-year-old. Ed's lack of height, however, brought him down to the average height of a fourteen-year-old. So acting the part of a fifteen-year-old really wasn't that hard.

"... has been unnecessarily glorified ever since."

Ed slowly drew himself back into reality. There was no use brooding over the past, after all. He'd just have to think of some theoretically impossible thing that no one could do and do it. Simple.

* * *

><p>"I swear that lesson was even more boring than it usually is! What, are the lessons supposed to get more boring as you get older or something? Because they're doing a bloody great job of it!" Ron ranted as soon as they got out of the godforsaken classroom.<p>

"Even Hermione resorted to reading under the desk," Harry chuckled.

"Harry!" Hermione blushed furiously.

"It's all right, 'Mione - we know how you feel," Ron taunted, only gaining a snigger from Ed and a very angry Hermione.

They continued down the corridor for a while, an uncomfortable silence reigning over them like a black storm cloud.

"So," Ed said to break the tension, "what lesson do we have next?"

* * *

><p>The rest of the day went by in a blur. Ed could barely even remember most of it - well, apart from his detention with Snape. <em>Remind <em>_me __never __to __go __to __his __detentions __again._

He was strolling back after his detention, trying to find the Gryffindor common room. He was alone, as not even Hermione had the patience to wait an hour outside in the depressing dungeons. However, she would soon learn that leaving Ed to find his way to somewhere without help was a very bad idea.

Ed had been wandering in circles around the castle for about two hours before he spotted some sign of life. He sprinted straight towards it - on closer inspection it proved to be a 'she' - as if his entire life depended on them. Knowing Ed, it probably did.

"Excuse me - excuse me!" He stopped about ten metres away, leaning his hands on his leather-clad knees and panting from the desperate sprint. A small part of him subconsciously scolded himself for being so out of shape.

"Yes? Can I- oh, it's you." A dreamy voice drifted into his thoughts, and he immediately looked up, only to come face-to-face with-... blond hair.

Ed blinked, lowering his gaze as he stood to his full height. He could barely repress the urge to jump in joy as the realisation hit him. _She__'__s __shorter __than __me!_

"You seem rather happy," the same dreamy voice concluded, and its owner smiled.

"Y-yeah," Ed murmured, suddenly unsure of what to do now that he was faced with the girl in front of him.

"You're Edward Elric, aren't you? My name's Luna Lovegood." The blond girl stretched out her hand in an offering of acquaintanceship, and Ed hesitantly accepted. _Strange_, Ed noted. _She __offered __me __her __right __hand._

"Am I that famous?" Ed chuckled. Apparently he was getting quite well-known here, despite his direct orders to keep a low profile. Oh well, Mustang should've known that the Fullmetal Alchemist and 'low profile' don't mix.

"Quite. Everyone's heard about you, you know."

"... Oh." Ed lacked something coherent to say, so settled for something along the lines of his 'actions speak louder than words' motto.

He smiled.

Luna's face immediately lit up - _Winry __always __said __she __liked __my __smile _- and she inched closer. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be somewhere else?"

"A-ah, well... I'm... lost," Ed mumbled, an embarrassed smile creeping onto his face.

A look of understanding passed onto Luna's pretty features, and- was that _sadness_? "Where were you trying to go?"

"The Gryffindor dorms."

"Oh." Luna smiled distantly, slightly tilting her head to the side. "I don't know where that is either."

"... Oh."

"But I know where the Ravenclaw dorms are." Luna giggled, grabbing Ed's right hand and promptly began to drag him down the deserted corridor in the direction he came from.

"Oh, but- ah... okay." Ed succumbed to the pleasant feeling that fumbled about in his chest when Luna took his hand, despite not being able to physically feel it, and let Luna drag him wherever she was going. _Looks __like __I__'__ll __be __staying __in __Ravenclaw __tonight._

Luna didn't say anything, but she was humming the most mysterious tune. Ed wondered what on earth it could be - it sounded like something from the medieval ages mixed with something oriental. It was almost as if the melody possessed him. He'd always been a sucker for music, after all.

"We're here," Luna sang as they approached a huge stone tower. Ed's eyes bulged. _How __the __hell __could __I __not __have __noticed __this __before?_

"... Thank you. For showing me the way, that is." Ed laughed, and Luna smiled warmly at him.

"You're welcome. I couldn't have left you in the halls, anyway - the shnarkels definitely would've had you then."

Ed vaguely remembered Hermione saying something about Luna making creatures up, and showed a small smile. Luna was definitely one of the most interesting people he knew. "What's a shnarkel?"

"They're carnivorous moths that come out in the evening. They like shiny things, so they definitely would've been attracted to your hair and arm."

"Oh, I see." As Ed pondered the thought of what on earth that meant and if they did, in fact, exist (who knew in this magical world?), he was led in by Luna, who was still loosely gripping his automail. Ed was intrigued. Never had he met a girl (except Winry, of course, but she didn't count) who was so willing to accept his automail as just another part of him before.

The pair were on the receiving end of quite a few wary glances and a couple of outright stares as they wandered through the blue-laced common room, but Ed was too deep in thought to notice and Luna was... well, just _Luna_.

"Here. Just up these stairs." Luna smiled, and Ed suddenly felt like she was seeing right into his soul. It was a rather unnerving experience, to be frank.

"Thank you," Ed murmured.

"Don't worry about it - you're welcome here whenever you're lost, you know. And don't worry, because the whoop-snaps will show you the way." Luna's smile grew broader, and Ed couldn't help but smile in return. It was odd, because he hardly ever smiled - truly _smiled_ - when he was back home. Smirked, yes, grinned, yes; but never _smiled_. It was rather refreshing for Ed, and he considered staying around Loony Luna more often, if only for the fresh taste of that feeling.

"I'll bear that in mind." Ed waved goodnight, as did Luna, and they parted ways, each going up their separate staircases, awaiting tomorrow.

* * *

><p><strong>Here's the explanation chapterLuna-gets-introduced chapter. :)**

**Over 4000 words~ :D (That's over ten pages on Word) 4398 words, to be exact. ;3**

**I made up the creatures Luna was talking about, by the way XD I OWN THEM! I DON'T HAVE TO PUT A DISCLAIMER UP FOR THEM~!**

**God, I loved writing that Snape scene. XD**

**Review? Fave? Alert? :3**


	4. Three: Bit by Bit

**Sorry for such a long wait XD;; I only started writing this a couple of days ago... XD**

**3222 words! :D (8 pages on Microsoft Word)**

**Warning: severe overuse of italics in this chapter. XD**

**Disclaimer~**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three - Bit by Bit<strong>

It was just another morning for the famous Harry Potter. Woken up by friend Hermione Granger who always seemed able to bypass the spell cast on the boy's dormitory to keep girls out. Waking up friend Ronald Weasley twenty minutes later. Rushing to breakfast. Eating as fast as he could manage while still retaining the ability to breathe. Dragging a grumbling Ronald to his first class of the day.

The thing was, it _shouldn__'__t_ have been 'just another morning'. There was one key new element to his day that had shown up out of nowhere two days ago and hadn't been spotted since Divinations class yesterday: Edward Elric.

"Hey, 'Arry," Ron mumbled absently while chewing on a stolen sandwich.

"Yeah?"

"I've got this really strange feeling that something's _missing_."

Ron subsequently received a rather brutal whack on the back of his head for the idiotic statement, and an irritated Hermione replied, "That's because Ed's not here, and hasn't been since last period yesterday!"

Ron's face brightened and his brown eyes widened as if he's just figured out the meaning of life. "Ohhhhhh!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, 'oh'," he teased, though he was smiling.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Hermione muttered behind them, and hurried forward to greet the lone Elric at the foot of the Astronomy tower. "Hey!"

Ed blinked, returning from a rather vivid daydream about thestrals and what Al would say if he saw them - actually, what Al would say if he saw half the things here. "Hey, Hermione."

"Where the hell _were_ you last night?" Ron yelled from down the open corridor.

"Ravenclaw, with Luna," Ed replied nonchalantly, as if it was completely normal to be hanging around with Loony Lovegood.

Ron's eyes bulged. "_Seriously_? You were hangin' around with her _voluntarily_?"

Ed gave him a rather strange look. "Yes," he said slowly, as if talking to a three-year-old he was explaining gravity to.

"Now _that__'__s_ what I call crazy," Ron muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Ronald!" Hermione scolded, whacking him again, this time on his left forearm.

"'Mione! What the bloody hell was that for? My sandwich is on the floor!"

"You act like a pig all the time, Ronald. I don't see why you don't just pick the sandwich back up off the floor and start eating it again. _Disgusting_," she added under her breath.

"All right, you two. We gotta get to class, remember?" Harry dragged Ron by his robe down the stone corridor, ignoring his whines of protest.

"Come on, then," Hermione sighed, and Ed quickened his pace to keep up with her educated march. It reminded him of when he first joined the military - those numerous hours spent marching in a squad in circles around an empty courtyard. He hadn't seen the point of it then, and he still didn't see the point of it now.

A sudden thought struck him. "Hey, you wizards - you have so many special terms and names for things, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of Magical Words dictionary around. You mind telling me what any of them mean?"

Hermione blinked. "That's right - you're muggle-born, aren't you?"

Ed chuckled, slightly embarrassed. "Yeah."

Hermione's face brightened considerably at the new knowledge. "You're like me, then."

Ed's eyes widened. "You're muggle-born?"

"And proud."

"But you're so _good_!"

"Someone's familial background has nothing to do with their skill in magic, Ed." Hermione laughed. "And thank you," she murmured as an afterthought.

Ed smiled awkwardly.

"So," Hermione started, refreshing the subject. "Wizarding terms."

"Yup."

"Well, I presume you know what a muggle is?" Hermione glanced at him for reassurance. It was obvious by the hopeful hint in her tone that if he didn't know what at least _this_ meant, there was no hope for him.

"Of course!" Ed replied rather indignantly. "A muggle is a non-magical human. And muggle-borns are people with muggle parents or something, right?"

"More or less. What about a squib?"

"... What?"

Hermione sighed, rearranging her textbooks clutched to her chest into a more comfortable position. "A squib is a muggle with magical parents."

"_Oh._"

"Do you know about Quidditch?"

"... Uh... Where you see how much money you can throw into a ditch?" Ed asked hopefully.

Hermione sighed again - this was going to be a _long_ walk to class.

* * *

><p>"Where on earth have you four been? In you go, in you go." McGonagall ushered them into the class they were ten minutes late for, Ed slipping into a seat beside Hermione - he'd figured out after the first lesson that sitting next to Ron was completely useless in terms of figuring out what he was supposed to do - and trying not to attract attention to himself.<p>

"Now that everyone is present-" McGonagall shot the trio and Ed a pointed glare- "we can begin the lesson. Today will be a 'revision' session, if you like, as none of you were able to perform magic over the holidays and are therefore, I imagine, extremely out of practice. Now, if you look at your desk - I said your _desk_, Mr. Zabini, not the window - you will see I have given each of you a rat. I hope that at the end of this lesson I will be collecting in thirty-four golden goblets, as in your first year. As you are all in the fifth year now, I presume you all know what to do, and will therefore need no help or instruction from me. Miss Granger, would you mind showing Mr. Elric what you are supposed to do?" At Hermione's startled protest, she quickly added, "I was told he was a bright boy. I am sure he will catch on."

There was a sudden flurry of loudly exclaimed spells and wand-swishing. Ed noted with a great deal of humour that most of these spells were far from perfect and lacked skill that he was sure even some second years had. The fact that the Professor had mentioned something about this being first years' work just added to the barely restrained laughter bubbling in his chest.

"So... what do I do, exactly?" Ed asked, staring intently at his rat, which was rather fat and seemed to have fallen asleep before he had entered the room.

Hermione answered knowledgably, You transfigure the rat into a golden goblet. Like this," Hermione stated (rather haughtily, Ed noticed), and demonstrated what must've been a perfect example of the work.

It, however, sent chills down Edward's spine. "Uh... What are you actually _doing_ to the rat, exactly...?" He asked, his voice having risen noticeably in pitch. Hermione gave him a strange look, but answered anyway.

"I'm using magic to turn the rat into a goblet," she repeated slowly.

"... Oh." Ed swallowed, his face now a peculiar shade of off-white. He didn't like this _one __bit_. "Professor?" He asked, his gaze not leaving Hermione's rat-turned-goblet.

"Yes, Mr. Elric?" she sighed, obviously not expecting interruption from her marking.

"I don't think... I don't think you should be _messing __with __lives_." This came out as a strained almost-whisper, and is somewhat scared Hermione, though she would never say it out loud. _I __wonder __what __could __compel __him __to __react __like __that_, she wondered.

"I do not understand what you mean, Mr. Elric." Apparently, McGonagall was also unnerved by Ed's unusual reaction, as she immediately sat straighter in her hard, wooden seat, and her attention was fully on her new pupil.

"I mean... you're just changing a _rat_ into a _cup-_"

"Goblet," Hermione mumbled.

"-and taking away its life. Just like that." Ed looked uncertainly at the Professor, and what she saw in his eyes she was sure would stay with her for a good few months. She had never seen that look in someone so young, and it scared her even more than his barely-perceptible shivering and his suddenly hoarse voice. "There isn't even any equivalent exchange," Ed added under his breath, though the Professor didn't hear.

"I see your point, Mr. Elric, but I assure you that the goblets can easily be changed back into rats again. '_Just __like __that_'," she quoted, a somewhat soothing tone to her usually harsh voice. Harry and Ron, now listening intently to the conversation, exchanged a glance.

"A-are you sure?" Ed asked, his voice now stronger and some of the cold panic in his eyes dissipating.

"I'm sure, Mr. Elric. I am the Transfigurations professor, after all. I should know what I'm talking about."

This seemed to greatly calm Ed, and his complexion returned to his light tan, but he still refused to actually perform the transfiguration himself. McGonagall sighed, and accepted it as a compromise. She was sure he was perfectly capable of doing it if he so wished, and at least he wasn't disturbing other students as Mr. Malfoy was.

Still, it was suspicious, and she made a mental note to inquire about it later, perhaps after class in a meeting with the Headmaster.

* * *

><p>Ron stretched, cracking his arms. "Bloody hell - I don't think a day of lessons has ever felt like so long before," he moaned.<p>

"_You_ might be complaining, Ron, but _I_ actually enjoyed today."

"I still don't understand how the _hell_ you manage to like school so much, 'Mione."

Harry sighed, relaxing his over-used brain. "Well, at least we didn't have Potions today, Ron."

"God, yeah."

"Why do people call Luna crazy?"

The three blinked at the sudden subject change. Hermione turned to her left, a similar expression on her face to the one she wore earlier when Ed asked what she was doing to the rat. "Because she is, Ed."

Ed considered this. "I don't think so."

Ron raised his eyebrows as he peered around Harry. "Why not?"

"I mean, sure, she's a little weird. But that's all she is, really. _Weird_. She's not crazy."

Ron snorted. "Of _course_ she ain't."

Harry elbowed Ron hard in the ribs, and Ron doubled over. "Oi! What was that for?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't be rude, Ronald."

Ron stuck out his tongue.

"I think it's because she talks about things that don't exist." Everyone turned to look at Harry, seemingly taking his turn in the conversation as the only person willing to give a serious answer.

"... Yeah, I think so too," Ed murmured absently, gazing out of the windows of the fourth-floor corridor as he wandered past them. He blinked as an idea struck him. "We don't have any homework to do tonight, right?"

"I _do_ hope you're not planning to not do homework and then copy from me, Ed."

Ed snorted. "As if."

Hermione looked insulted, and turned away, discreetly shifting to the other side of Harry so she wouldn't have to walk next to Ed anymore.

"Why'd you ask?" said Harry.

"I was just gonna-" _go __feed __the __thestrals, __one __of __Luna__'__s__ '__imaginary__' __creatures. __Yeah, __that __would __go __down __well._ "-go to the library. I wanted to look into this transfiguration stuff more."

"Oh."

The three wandered in silence until they encountered the library, where Ed broke off and strolled through the doors with a chaste wave reminiscent of his brother's.

The door closed behind him, and his innocent smile quickly deflated, becoming quickly overrun by a devilish Edward Elric trademark grin. The librarian shot him a wary glance, but said nothing. Well, until Ed jumped out of the window, that is.

"What on _earth_ do you think you're doing, boy?"

But Edward was already gone.

* * *

><p>"Lemon drops."<p>

The stone gargoyle leapt out of its place, revealing the spiraling staircase lying beyond to one Minerva McGonagall. She ascended with grace, carrying with her the air of a stalking cat. As was to be expected, of course.

The doors opened upon her arrival, and she didn't hesitate to step straight through them, ignoring the loud bang that reverberated through the circular office as magic slammed the door closed once more.

"Albus," she greeted.

"Minerva," he greeted back, his glowing blue eyes twinkling behind half-moon spectacles. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected meeting?"

"The new student, Albus."

"Ah." A knowing smile drifted across his face. "I assume you are here to ask me about his unusual behaviour?"

"Yes. He turned quite pale during my lesson, and it took quite a bit of reasoning to get him to calm down. Even then, he refused to do the work."

"May I ask; what were you asking him to transfigure, Professor?" Dumbledore's eyes hinted at amusement now, and Minerva didn't like it.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed fractionally. "I asked the class to transfigure a rat into a goblet, as they did in their first year, Albus."

"... Ah." Dumbledore's knowing smile grew dangerously close to a grin as the realisation struck him.

"I don't see anything wrong with that request."

"There is nothing wrong with the request, Minerva - no, I believe the _request_ is not the problem."

"Then what do you suggest _is_ the problem, Albus?"

"The _boy_."

Minerva blinked, her hard stare shape-shifting into one of extreme confusion and - as cats are often known for - curiosity. "Why would the boy be the problem, Albus?"

"Because he isn't telling us everything."

Minerva considered this - the boy's strange limbs went by unexplained, after all. Who knew what other secrets he could be hiding? "It seems so, Albus."

* * *

><p>Ed stopped short of the forest's edge - the place where the thestrals were kept. He didn't stop because the thestrals weren't there, or because he had changed his mind. He stopped because there was already someone feeding them.<p>

And, if his sight wasn't failing him, it was none other than Luna Lovegood.

Ed mentally snorted. Who else would it be?

"Hey," he murmured casually, knowing Luna would hear him over the calming silence.

"Hey, Ed," Luna sighed back, her voice seemingly even dreamier than usual. Maybe it was just the effect of this place and the strange silence, but Ed suddenly felt somewhat dreamily calm too. "Did you come to feed the thestrals?" she asked.

"Yeah. But it looks like they're already fed."

Luna giggled dazedly. "Oh no, there's plenty more thestrals than these three. I'm sure I could use your help." She handed him a maroon leather pouch about the size of his hand without looking at him, which upon Ed's inspection proved to be full of a strange kind of purple, spiked berry that smelled like his father's aftershave.

Ed watched Luna sift through her own bag and pick out four berries each the size of a grape before offering them in her palm to a thestral nearby.

Ed copied. He grabbed a small handful and hesitantly placed his automail under a thestral's mouth; it snorted at him and stamped its hoof - if you could call it that - but inhaled the berries anyway. _Better __than __outright __rejection_, Ed mused in the back of his mind.

They continued for a while, the same repetitive action pulling both their minds far away until neither knew the other was there anymore. That is, until a thought suddenly struck Ed's mind, pummeling him back to earth.

"Why are people afraid of thestrals?" It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to ask Luna. Ed guessed Luna was great for that kind of thing - if you wanted to know something but didn't want to look like a complete moron or weirdo when asking about it, ask Luna.

She hesitated slightly before answering in a slightly less up-in-the-clouds tone, "Because only those who have seen death can see them."

Ed blinked, unsure of how to answer that. So that was why people thought she was making them up - none of them had seen death, and could therefore not see the thestrals. It would also explain Harry's slightly friendlier relationship with her - he'd witnessed his parents' deaths, even if he was only a baby, so he had some proof that Luna wasn't completely off her rocker. Unfortunately for him, nobody believed Harry, either.

"No one's asked me that before," Luna whispered, a faint smile growing on her pale face.

Ed chuckled. "No one else is like me."

"I can tell."

Ed gave her a curious but somewhat amused glance before moving on to another thestral in need of food.

He paused mid-rummage as something important but also vastly personal occurred to him, and murmured so quietly you would never normally be able to hear him, "Whose death did you see?"

Luna's answer was one that made Ed's heart lurch. "My mother's."

Ed laughed quietly, a pained gasp for the breath he needed after his lungs stopped working in shock. "What a coincidence."

It was Luna's turn to pause, and she looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"I saw my mother's death too." _I__'__ve __seen __plenty __more __deaths __than just __that, _Ed thought morbidly.

Luna's sad smile became just a teensy bit brighter, and she laughed with him. "I see."

Ed's laughter faded into a lingering smile at the information shared. It wasn't often he had the opportunity to talk like this - sure, there was his brother, but his brother already knew everything and so was unfortunately not much help in the confession department. He had to keep up a strong front for the military or they might reduce his research funds, demote him or fire him for being too soft. He had no parents to confide in (none that he liked, anyway), and he always felt awkward talking about emotional stuff in front of Granny.

Being able to talk about his past in a place where he was completely anonymous to a person who nobody would believe even if she spread his story around the entire school was, all in all, a very refreshing experience, and an experience Ed had been in need of for a very long time.

"Equivalent exchange..." he mused as the thought of the equality of their conversation he very rarely got in real life.

"Hmm?" Luna murmured in her light, dreamy voice, gaining Ed's attention.

Ed chuckled. "Nothing. Just an old saying from my home country." _Half-truth._

"Ah. You know, there's an old song my father used to sing to me when I was little. He said it was from his home country. I'll sing it to you if you explain what your saying means," she said, and turned to Ed, smiling.

Ed couldn't hide the grin rapidly claiming a great part of his face. "It means that in order for something to be gained, something of equal value must be lost. Like a trade."

Luna considered this a moment, before concluding something and proceeding to draw in a deep lungful of breath, her bright azure eyes closing as she drew herself into a world of her own. _Not __that __she __isn__'__t __usually __in __one __anyway._

Luna then began to sing - it was a strange, ethereal tune with no obvious words to it. The vowels strung themselves together in a way that reminded Ed of the small bits of Xerxesien he had taught himself from his father's textbooks. It was a song of the strange, a song of the mourning, a song of the dead...

"A trade," she whispered.

* * *

><p><strong>I liked that ending, even though it didn't make much sense :3<strong>

**I wrote 3/4 of this today, so sorry if it's rushed... =.=;;**

**Finally, a vaguely EdxLuna scene! *Celebration***


	5. Four: Discoveries

**I can't believe I wrote this entire chapter in one day XD Well, here's an early update! :D**

**I'm sorry, I just love writing this story so much... *Sniff sniff***

**Disclaimer~**

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><p><strong>Chapter Four - Discoveries<strong>

"Potions class first thing in the morning should be _banned_!" Ron grumbled loudly.

"Tell me about it," Harry joined.

"Even _I_ don't like Potions in the morning," Hermione moaned.

Ed smirked at the three as they reluctantly dragged themselves to their first lesson of the day - Potions. To be honest, Ed didn't mind Potions - Snape was an idiot, after all, and the work was just too easy for someone well-versed in chemistry. He didn't see why the others were moaning so much. So, true to his nature, he loudly stated his opinion. "I don't see the problem with it."

Ron gawked at him, his mouth agape and his eyes resembling two of the fried eggs Ed had eaten for breakfast. "How - _how_ -"

Ed shrugged casually. "Snape's a moron, and the work isn't that hard."

"_Seriously_?" The incredulity in Harry's voice just made Ed's smirk grow. _Damn_, he thought, _I__'__m __turning __into __the __Colonel._

"Yup." Ed promptly began whistling so as to drown out any other unwanted questions and nagging. Ron began another question before Hermione elbowed him with a quiet hiss, catching Ed's drift.

"Hey!" Ron protested, and scowled at his attacker. Hermione rolled her eyes. Harry chuckled.

"Before this breaks out into a fight, I'd just like to remind you two that we're, y'know, _here_," Harry said between laughs.

"Oh _great_," Ron groaned.

Ed grinned.

It looked like the four had arrived just in time, because at that very moment, Snape burst through the rusted double doors and commanded everyone to sit down and be quiet.

As soon as everyone was settled, Snape began the lesson, throwing wary glances at Ed every few seconds. "Today we will be practicing making _veritaserum_. I presume you are all at least clever enough to remember what that is. The instructions are on page fifty-two of your textbooks, and I want a perfect example of it from each and every one of you by the end of this lesson. Don't mess it up, because you will be testing it on your fellow students and I'm sure none of you want to poison your friends." Snape allowed a few moments for the message to sink in, watching with a hawk's eye as many of the students visibly paled, Ron included. "Begin."

Ed wasted no time jumping straight in. "What's veritaserum?"

"It's a potion that makes the drinker tell the truth," Hermione responded as she began unpacking the necessary ingredients and her cauldron in a business-like manner.

At this, Ed paled too. He could see why the class wouldn't want to be test subjects. Not only could it be poisonous if you ingested a failed potion, but if it was a successful potion you'd be spilling your secrets left right and centre. It was a lose-lose situation.

_Especially_ if your name was Edward Elric, he realised. He'd lied about his age, his home country, his background, his limbs - his _life_. If any information got out about what he was doing here Mustang would _kill_ him. _No, __actually, __he __wouldn__'__t_, Ed concluded after a brief moment's thought, _these __people __would._

"Ed? Are you okay?" Harry asked, apparently the only person to notice his reaction.

Ed gulped. "I'm fine," he managed, though it was far from believable.

Harry caught the hint, however, and let it be. He knew Ed had a tendency for speaking whatever was on his mind, so if he refused to say something then it was probably a subject that shouldn't be pushed. "Do you have a cauldron?"

Ed was grateful for the change of subject. "Yeah. Hang on, I think it's over here somewhere..."

Ed bent over and rummaged under the desk, and Hermione used this chance to send Harry a questioning gaze and a discreet tip of the chin in Ed's direction. _What__'__s __up __with __him?_

Harry shrugged and shook his head. _No __idea_.

"Aha!" Ed returned, triumphant, from under his desk, holding up his cauldron like a trophy.

Ron watched in awe as Ed began to efficiently sift through bags of various ingredients and tip seemingly the exact quantities straight into the cauldron with only a couple of glances at the textbook. "Wow..."

Ed heard the whisper and shot Ron a neutral glance - he'd gotten this reaction all the time at home. He'd get 'wow's and 'amazing's from performing simple alchemy, and even just walking down the street merited awed gasps from the general public.

The time passed quicker than Ed thought it would. He'd only barely managed to finish and perfect his potion before Snape called out, "Stop making your potions and pour them into a bottle. Put them in this bag and you will all take a random bottle for yourself."

The students did as instructed. Ed retrieved a strangely-shaped bottle with a green stopper that Harry promptly told Ed was his own. This comforted Ed a little - Harry's potions were average, so hopefully it wouldn't poison him _or_ be strong enough to force him to say anything. Ed had always been known for his iron will and stubbornness, after all.

"Damn," he heard Ron mutter from in front of him. "Why'd I have to get my own?"

Ed sighed, amused. He mentally planned out the route he'd take to the hospital wing and what he'd say to his next teacher to excuse himself for being late.

The class had begun to hesitantly down their bottles as soon as Snape had turned his back and begun to rub off the chalk from the blackboard. Ed noticed a few of the students - the ones unlucky enough to obtain well-brewed potions - babbling the most personal answers to complete strangers. Ed gulped - he just hoped Harry's potion was really as average as the rest of his potions were.

Snape caught Ed's eye and sent him a glare that clearly said _Drink __it __or __I__'__ll __force __it __down __your __throat. _So, not wanting the unnecessary attention, Ed uncorked the three-inch tall bottle and raised it to his lips. Ed almost choked on the disgusting flavour as he downed it in one go - it tasted like _milk_.

He then discreetly made his way to his own cauldron, pretending to pack up his stuff under the desks in the hope of not being noticed. He knew he would probably get asked tons of questions if people caught him - he was, after all, incredibly attention-attracting (not by choice) and stood out rather blatantly among the normal students.

His hopes were dashed, however, when he felt a presence beside him and an arm brushed against his right thigh. He jerked his head up at the contact, only to be greeted by bright, glowing pools of turquoise-blue mere inches from his own golden orbs. "Luna," he whispered.

She gazed at him, her dreamy expression cast straight through him, and Ed had the uncomfortable feeling that she was searching through his very soul. Searching... for _something_.

She let out a slow breath, and the sudden tang of oranges in the air made Edward blink. "Who are you?" she breathed.

Ed couldn't restrain himself from answering - the weak veritaserum pulled the words on the tip of his tongue out of his mouth, and Ed's stomach dropped as he heard he words he uttered. "The Fullmetal Alchemist."

* * *

><p>Ed spent the rest of that day thinking about what he'd accidentally told Luna earlier. Was she going to look him up? Was she going to spread it around the school? She didn't strike Ed as the type to do either, but the possibility was still there, and it made Ed more than a little tense. If Mustang knew he'd let his military alias slip so easily, he'd surely get a good threatening... or the bastard might even call Winry, just to make sure the threat of a beating was actually carried out.<p>

_But __what__'__s __done __is __done_, Ed assured himself. There was no use brooding over the past when he couldn't change it - and even if there _was_ a magical way to time-travel, he honestly didn't have the time or energy to go through with it. He was too absorbed in schooling, research and pretending to be someone else to worry about such a thing, after all.

So then why couldn't he get it out of his mind?

"You all right? You seem a little out of it," Harry muttered from behind him. Ed jumped in his position seated on the red leather sofa and craned his neck to give Harry a grand glare for sca- _surprising_ him.

"I'm fine." Ed sighed. "It's just that whole thing in Potions - Snape, that _bastard_."

Harry sighed too, an almost perfect imitation of Ed's own. "I know. That was hell."

Ed smirked. "Who caught you?"

Harry grimaced, flopping himself down next to Ed, letting the Gryffindor fireplace warm him from the winter chill. "Lavender."

Ed couldn't stop the amused smirk creeping onto his face, and it took everything he had to stifle the snickers rising in the back of his throat.

"Hey, don't laugh," Harry grumbled. "I'm sure _you_ said some things you didn't want to, too."

Ed's humour quickly vanished, replaced with a tired grimace. "Yeah. Luckily it was only Luna, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Even if she told everyone what I said, no one would believe her... Well, except you, because I've told you its true now."

It was Harry's turn to smirk. "I guess."

"How's Ron doing?" Ed asked off-handedly.

"He's not dead, thank god. He's still out cold, though. I wonder if he's gonna be all right..." Harry trailed off.

"He'll be fine," Ed chirped lightly. "He's... y'know, _Ron_. He'll make it out alive if it's the last thing he does."

Harry chuckled at this. "I guess you're right. No use worrying."

Ed paused thoughtfully before responding. "Yeah," he murmured distantly, a dreamy look coming over his face.

Harry waved off Ed's strange reaction - Ed was a strange person; he was used to it by now.

Ed thought over Harry's last sentence. 'No use worrying'. There really wasn't anything that could come out of obsessing over the information he'd leaked, and he could easily deny it if word got out. Except to Harry, that is. But Harry was _Harry __Potter_, so Ed was sure he'd be good at keeping a secret. And plus, it would give him a good excuse to hang around Harry a bit more and find out if he'd be helpful in the Drachman war that was on the brink of erupting. That was another one of Mustang's orders. _Honestly_, Ed thought, _are __war, __promotions __and __power __the __only __things __that __bastard __ever __thinks __about?_

Ed blinked. _Actually, __thinking __about __Mustang... __I __should __really __send __a __report __soon._ Ed grimaced - he _detested_ writing reports. He usually just made his handwriting as illegible as possible so he could fit in some scribbles to take up space without anyone realizing it was gibberish. The first time he'd done it, he'd burst out in laughter at how nobody seemed to notice. He got quite a few sideways glances in the corridor after that.

"Hey, Harry," Edward said.

"Yeah?"

"Is there any paper - _parchment_, whatever - around here I could use? I wanna write someone a letter."

"Oh, yeah - under the table over there." Harry gestured vaguely behind him without looking up from the essay he was writing. "Next to the ink pots."

"Thanks," Ed muttered over his shoulder as he began to roam the room looking for said table and ink pots. He found them after about five minutes, and slid into a seat at an unoccupied table. He was writing his report in code, so people looking over his shoulder wouldn't matter, but he liked privacy all the same.

_Now_, Ed thought, _how __should __I __write __this?_

Eventually, Ed decided to label Al and Winry as the main recipients, and have a small 'recipe' attached which he was sure Al would give to Mustang.

_Al __& __Win_, he started.

_Sorry __for __not __writing __sooner. __It__'__s __been __pretty __hectic __over __here __- __who __knew __there __was __so __much __studying __to __do?_ _This__ '__magic__' __they __have __is __incredible __- __it __completely __bypasses __the __laws __of __Equivalent __Exchange!__I __still __don__'__t __like __it __much, __though. __It__'__s __weird __and __unnatural. __I__'__m __sure __you__'__d __love __it __here, __though, __Al. __This __place __is __full __of __weird __things __and __people. _

Ed paused, absent-mindedly tapping the end of his pen against his chin.

_How __are __you? __I __heard __you__'__re __engaged. __Then __again, __I __can__'__t __trust __anything __that __bastard __Colonel __tells __me. __If __it__'__s __true, __I__'__m __happy __for __you. __If __he __was __just __making __an __idiot __out __of __me, __hit __him. __Hard. __Preferably __with __one __of __your __wrenches, __Win. __Actually, __hit __him __anyway._

Ed sniggered.

_Promise __more __news __soon. __Please __don__'__t __worry __about __me, __I__'__ll __be __fine. __These __wizards __have __no __self-defense __skills._

_- Ed_

Ed smiled, satisfied with the letter, and folded it haphazardly in half before setting it aside to begin the 'recipe' for Mustang.

_Bastard,_

_No news on time travel or space travel, though there's nothing anywhere that says they're impossible. There's this big evil guy who's trying to lead an army of brainwashed followers into world domination. Apparently, he's not far off attacking Hogwarts. When he does, I'll kick his ass. No other threats, though. It seems Hogwarts is 'one of the safest places on earth', according to the headmaster. There are plenty of useful allies over here, but they don't seem the type to be easily persuaded into helping out in another war - they have their hands full with their own. _

_Write soon with more info._

_-FMA_

Ed crumpled up the parchment and ripped it into a smaller size for effect before stuffing it in an envelope along with the letter for Al and Winry. He brusquely sketched the military seal on the back of the envelope to make sure Al got the hint, and stood up to leave the Gryffindor common room.

"Where are you going? Ron asked from across the room.

Ed waved the letter behind him as he crossed the carpeted floor. "Owlery."

"Oh." Ron returned to his game of wizard chess with someone Ed hadn't bothered to learn the name of as Ed shoved open the heavy wooden doors and slammed them shut behind him.

Ed sighed deeply. He was free. He could be himself now, now that no one was watching him with prying eyes. He could be the _Fullmetal __Alchemist_, right here, right now, wandering these corridors, and it gave him a much-welcomed sense of freedom he never knew he wanted.

* * *

><p>It took him longer than he planned to find the Owlery. He'd only been there once (on a brief tour with Hermione), and he hadn't bothered to memorise the route.<p>

Ed was thoroughly frustrated by the time he finally made it up the spiral staircase. Who had the stupid idea of making staircases move, anyway? He'd gotten trapped on the staircases for a good half hour before he managed to make it through a door of some kind and onto flat ground, only to find out he was outside the Slytherin dorms, on the opposite side of the school to the Owlery.

Ed found the owl Mustang had assigned him, and shoved the letter in its direction. The owl snapped at his hand holding the letter (_Dammit, __why__'__d __I __offer __it __my__ left __hand?_) and practically tore the envelope out of his now bleeding grip before shooting through the window in a flurry of feathers. Ed scowled at it as it flew through the sky far faster than a normal owl should've been able to fly. _Mustang __probably __thinks __this __is __funny, __the __bastard. __He__'__ll __probably __give __it __a __treat __for __harassing __me __or __something._

With that irritating thought, Ed stomped down the staircase, ignoring the frightened protests of a couple of Ravenclaw girls as he passed them on his way down.

_I __haven__'__t __got __any __exams __or __tests __tomorrow, __and __I __finished __all __my __homework __yesterday,_ Ed thought. _I __have __absolutely __nothing __to __do._

Ed sighed irritably. He hated having nothing to do. He was the kind of person who was always on his feet, always doing something, even when researching. If his brother wasn't there to stop him, Ed would often pace up and down while reading something, and once Al caught him throwing punches at the wall with his automail hand while trying to decode his father's research on the philosopher's stone.

So having _absolutely __nothing _to do didn't sit well with him. "May as well take a walk," he muttered under his breath.

Ed didn't know how long it had been since he'd started 'taking a walk', but someone had pulled a silky, pure black blanket over the evening sky by the time he found something interesting.

It was a wall. Ed knew that - it was just an ordinary castle wall on the second floor. But there was something about it that just didn't seem quite _right_. Call it a sixth sense, but Ed had always been able to tell if something was wrong, and this was a prime example. Ed wandered over to the wall slowly and brushed his fingertips against the stone - he gasped when the stone _rippled_ under his touch.

Now Ed knew something was _definitely _wrong. Stone didn't _ripple_.

Suddenly a giant black door appeared in the wall, and Ed was immediately touching dark wood. Ed flinched back, and he couldn't help the hiss of surprise that bubbled out of his throat at the sudden change. Ed was hopelessly curious, however, and couldn't resist finding out what was in the concealed room.

Ed was never one for politeness, but if there was some ancient evil warlock on the other side of the door he definitely didn't want to get on its bad side. So, hesitantly, he knocked.

"Hello?" he whispered.

There was no warning before the door flew open in his face, smashing into his nose and surely breaking it, and a pointed line was shoved in between his eyes.

Ed trailed his vision along what he now made out to be a wand, and let his eyes rest upon the owner. As they made eye contact, both parties gasped.

"Ed?"

"Luna?" they said simultaneously.

There was a brief moment of tense silence before Luna burst out in a fit of giggles and gently pushed Ed inside before quietly shutting the humongous door behind her.

"You gave me quite a shock, there, Ed - I thought you were one of the professors!" Luna giggled again.

Ed gave a half-hearted laugh - he was still in shock. "What is this place?" he breathed.

Luna smiled airily. "The Room of Requirement. It's a room that gives the person everything they need for a specific purpose."

Ed nodded thoughtfully. "I see." He glanced around. "It's empty."

Luna smiled enthusiastically. "Because I wanted it to be empty."

Ed understood the idea, and his face brightened. "I get it." He took a moment's consideration before asking, "Why did you want it to be empty?"

Luna pranced around the room, her skirt twirling around her. "I come here to find peace." She smiled. "It's hard to find peace when there are loads of nimblewags crawling around."

Ed chuckled at her antics. "I see."

Luna danced right up to him, so her nose almost touched his. "Your nose is broken."

Ed blinked at the sudden closeness, and went cross-eyed attempting to look at his nose.

Luna giggled, and nudged his nose with hers.

"Ow!" Ed let out a sudden yelp of pain before shielding his nose with his hand.

"See?" Luna tipped her head to the side. "I could fix it if you want."

"With magic?" Ed asked, his voice dripping with incredulity.

"Of course." Luna eyed him in a way that suggested he was crazy for thinking anything else, and Ed sighed.

"O-okay." He really wanted to see what magic could do, after all. If it could fix broken bones and heal injuries then it would be incredibly useful in the battlefield, and if he fed Mustang this knowledge he might get a pay raise.

Luna waved her wand idly at Ed's nose, which snapped back in place with a 'crack' and a burst of white light.

Ed let out another yell, but this time in surprise. His nose was really healed! He touched it tentatively, afraid that it would break again without warning.

"There." Luna giggled dreamily.

"Thanks," Ed whispered, totally in awe.

Luna smiled her response, and Ed decided she must be in a good mood. She seemed to be smiling and giggling more than usual.

He jumped when she grabbed his hand - his _automail_ hand, to Ed's surprise - and dragged him over to a leather chair that had mysteriously appeared. Ed slumped down into it - he'd been on his feet for hours, and his right leg was really starting to ache. He let out a sigh of contentment, to which Luna briskly skipped over to a window ledge under a window overlooking a sunny field that had also appeared out of nowhere and curled herself up on it, dragging her knees up to her chin.

"You said you come here to find peace," Ed started after a moment. There was no reaction from Luna, so Ed didn't wait for one. "Why?"

It was a full five minutes before Luna answered. "Because I like peace. And the castle isn't peaceful," she whispered.

Ed considered this. He could see why she liked peace - it had a strange habit of temporarily lifting a weight off your shoulders, Ed found. And the castle certainly wasn't peaceful in the places he normally went.

Ed drew his gaze back to Luna again, about to respond, when he noticed her eyes were closed and her breathing was considerably slower than before. He smiled. Trust Luna to fall asleep in the most awkward of positions. _Although_, he quietly admitted, _she __does __look __like __an __angel __like __that._The non-existent midday sun outside her window cast a halo around her white-blond hair as it reflected off it, and her expression reminded Ed of a sleeping baby. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could hear the deep breaths she was whispering in the silence of the almost-empty room. It sounded like a lullaby to Ed, who really hadn't had much sleep over the past few days after gaining a false lead on time-travel. He barely noticed as his own eyelids slipped shut, and he drifted into oblivion.

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><p><strong>Aww! More EdxLuna! :3<strong>

**God, this chapter took forever to edit. =.= FFN thinks it's funny to string all my italicized words together so I have to go through the whole chapter and put spaces in between them, which isn't fun when you have huge paragraphs of italics. =.=**

**Sorry for mistakes. I don't proof-read my work XD;;**


	6. Five: Just Another Rumour

**Haven't updated this one in a while, sorry XD;; Been busy writing 'Ward 17', another FMA/HP crossover :3 I suggest you check it out if you don't mind a bit of blood and gore~**

**Disclaimer~**

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><p><strong>Chapter Five - Just Another Rumour<strong>

"Wake up," an airy voice reminding Ed of a wind chime sang in his ear.

"Nngh."

"Wake up, Ed," she whispered again.

"Don' wanna," Ed mumbled groggily, not really caring at that moment who exactly was trying to wake him up. He just hoped they'd listen to him and go away.

His previous joyous thoughts of slumber, however, vanished as soon as someone blew harshly into his left ear. Ed let out a strangled yelp of shock and ungracefully lurched forward out of the leather armchair, spinning around wildly with eyes that couldn't possibly be wider. "W-who..?"

Luna giggled softly, though it rang through the empty room clearly in the deafening silence. She waved timidly to a very disturbed Ed. You couldn't blame him, really. He didn't usually wake up in a foreign universe with a girl he'd barely known for a week blowing in his ear.

"... Luna? Why-" Ed started, before abruptly cutting himself off mid-sentence as he noticed his surroundings and foggy memories began returning to him. He blinked as he processed the new information, reminding Luna of a deer caught in the headlights. "Oh. I guess... we fell asleep."

Luna nodded dreamily. "I think we did."

Ed glanced out of the imaginary window Luna had recently vacated in favour of waking Ed up. The sky was a misty orange colour. "It's evening out there."

Luna slowly turned her head to face the window. "It seems to quiet to be the evening, though. Usually there would be loads of noisy students passing right about now."

The two paused, holding their breath - still, they couldn't hear anything other than Ed's creaking automail. Ed scrunched up his face in concentration, forcing his still very slow and rather groggy mind into full power a little sooner than it would have liked. "Hang on - wasn't it daytime earlier? When it was really evening? So... oh." Ed scrunched up his face again, but this time in annoyance as he came to the realisation. Luna blinked patiently, waiting for him to start making sense. "Great," Ed growled. "It's the middle of the fucking night. Dumbledore said I was allowed out after curfew, but I don't think we can say the same for you, Luna..." Ed trailed off, running a flesh hand through his long, tousled hair, wincing as his finger caught on a tangle.

Luna whispered, "Usually the whitlings would be able to make me invisible so I could get back to the common room without trouble, but none of them seem to like me at the moment. I think we're going to have to sneak out."

Ed sighed, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes at the completely obvious conclusion Luna had come to. "Follow me, and try not to make any noise. Don't worry, I'm used to sneaking around places at night." Ed gently snatched a slightly perplexed Luna's hand and tugged her towards the door. Luna opened it and as soon as they were (un)safely outside, the door disappeared with a rather loud 'poof!' and a burst of odd-smelling smoke. Ed winced at the attention-attracting spectacle.

"Sorry," Luna apologised, though it was hard to believe she was sincere when her dreamy tone of voice suggested strongly to Ed that she was mentally on the other side of the world.

Wherever that was.

Ed physically shook the confusing and unwarranted thoughts out of his head, and they proceeded to wind their way though deserted corridors, and Ed cursed loudly when Luna tripped up a flight of stairs, waking a nearby painting.

"Oi! Whatcha doing out afta 'ours?"

Ed froze, and discreetly shoved Luna into a crevice in the stone wall next to him, hoping at least she wouldn't be spotted.

"I'm talkin' ter you!" The old, half-balding man hobbled up to Ed, pointing a mangled, accusing finger at Ed's face, which Ed barely managed to repress the urge to recoil at.

"I have Dumbledore's permission," Ed almost snarled. He didn't like this man one bit.

"Well let's bring yer to 'is office then, shall we? See what he says then!"

"Feel free," Ed replied nonchalantly, his bare hands stuffed into his leather pockets.

The man's face balled into one of ugly anger. "I'll give yer a bit of advice kid." Ed's eyebrows furrowed. He _wasn__'__t_ a kid. "You don' want to get on the wrong side of Argus Filch, yer hear me?" the man now identified as Filch growled, before stalking off in the direction Ed assumed was the Headmaster's office. "An' bring the dratted girl with yer!"

Ed's eyes widened slightly before narrowing at the old man's perceptiveness. Ed thought he understood why Dumbledore hired the man as the janitor/warden/parole officer in the first place. Ed sighed. "C'mon, Luna."

Luna trotted out from the gap in the wall, walking closely to the right of and slightly behind Ed as if she was frightened, though her facial expression and the fact she seemed to be humming something resembling an old nursery rhyme told Ed a completely different story. She didn't seem worried at all. Ed shook his head almost imperceptibly in disbelief. This girl was so strange. He doubted he'd ever understand her.

* * *

><p>"Would you two care to explain why you were wandering the corridors at three a.m.?" Dumbledore smiled warmly at them over his half-moon glasses, a friendly expression to most, though Ed felt rather looked down on while held in that steely gaze. It made him quite uncomfortable, and the most he could do was inspect the broken buckle on his left boot and let Luna explain.<p>

"We were in the Room of Requirement, sir," she started dazedly, and Dumbledore's genuinely surprised expression told Ed the Room of Requirement wasn't something especially well-known.

"Bullsh-"

"Argus," Dumbledore commanded. Filch shut up.

"Go on," Dumbledore turned his attention back to Luna.

"We fell asleep there. We woke up and it was nighttime. Ed tried to sneak me back to Ravenclaw common room, but Filch caught us."

"I see." Dumbledore nodded slowly, before smiling. "As neither of you were intentionally out after curfew, I shall let you go." Dumbledore nodded at them to leave, and they did so, Ed's irritable stroll a striking contrast to Luna's strange Irish dance-like skip to the door. "And please don't let this happen again."

Luna giggled and Ed let out a garbled, "yeah, yeah."

As soon as the two shut the doors behind them, Filch spoke up. "Funny pair, aren't they?" he asked gruffly.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Quite."

* * *

><p>"Ungh," Ed groaned as he slumped gracelessly on the plain blue sofa in the Ravenclaw common room. "That was a hell of a lot more trouble than I hoped it would be."<p>

"But at least we're alive," Luna commented, apparently not paying any attention to what she was saying.

Ed turned around in his seat, looking over his left shoulder at her, and gave her an odd look that she completely missed. "Why _wouldn__'__t_ we be alive?"

"Oh, you know... The walls have a tendency of eating people..." Luna sounded even more dreamy and distant than usual, and Ed concluded with a roll of his eyes that talking to her was utterly useless at this point in time.

"Sure."

Ed stood up suddenly, an important thought occurring to him. If Ravenclaws were really as nerdy as everyone made them out to be, then surely they'd have a ton of books lying around here somewhere, right? Ed risked a glance at Luna. _Nah, _he thought, _she__'__s __too __out __of __it. __She__'__d __probably __direct __me __out __of __the __window._ He huffed under his breath. _Looks __like __I__'__m __gonna __have __to __find __them __myself._

Ed spent the next three scourging through the numerous rooms and libraries for any books that would be relatively helpful as far as time- and space-travel were concerned. The Gryffindor common room had only two cramped bookshelves, both of which were stuffed top-to-toe with magic books. The Ravenclaw dorms, however, had innumerable bookshelves scattered throughout the entire complex arrangement of small rooms that made up the Ravenclaw common room. Ed had so far found a total of twelve books mentioning time- and space-travel in more than one paragraph, and his mood was near the clouds. They'd only had five promising books in the entire main library! _It __looks __like __I__'__ll __be __staying __in __Ravenclaw __a __lot __soon._ Ed grinned almost hysterically at the thought. If there was one thing he liked more than solving international problems and saving the country, it was figuring out _how_ to solve international problems and save the country.

He returned into the main room (the one with the three sofas, two desks and a fireplace) and dumped the stack of books unceremoniously on the coffee table. He glanced at the furthest sofa away, where Luna had been when he'd last seen her, and let out a small smile and a quiet sigh of amusement when he saw she'd fallen asleep. Again. _Does __she __have __something __against __sleeping __in __her __bed __or __something?_

He dumped himself on the nearest sofa to the coffee table, and began to work systematically through the books, marking every page that even hinted at time- or space-travel.

He'd managed fifteen page-markers in twenty-three minutes before anyone showed any sign of getting up. Ed blinked at how fast the time had gone by while he was collecting books. He glanced at the tattered grandfather clock in the corner of the room. _6:30, __roughly_, he thought.

The first kid to show himself (around quarter to seven) balked at the sight of the mysterious boy with a metal arm and hair like spun gold sitting in front of a roaring fire, marking pages in old, yellowed books with neon page-markers.

Ed noticed with amusement out of the corner of his eye that the boy seemed utterly lost for words, so Ed prompted him. "Hello," he greeted, though not particularly friendly, not malicious either.

"H-hullo." The ragged-looking third-year (Ed guessed by his third-year Potions textbook he was carrying) hurried past Ed, dropping in a weird half-bow before practically shooting out of the door.

Ed showed a strange, amused smile at the regard people obviously held him in. The people he'd never actually talked to in person always stammered around him and shot him strange glances. They treated him more respectfully than they did their teachers, Ed noted, and it gave him an odd sort of pride. He'd never really had the chance to indulge in people looking up to him before, what with Colonel Bastard always in his face about assignments he couldn't read or meetings Ed had missed with the excuse of 'alien invasion' over the phone. Ed smirked at the memory. He'd practically laughed his guts up afterwards, especially after he'd heard that Bradley had stood up for him in his absence at said meeting, claiming 'I have as much proof that there was an alien invasion in Fullmetal's apartment half an hour ago as I do of the fact that Major General Hakuro is off sick with the flu.'

"U-um... Hello? Are you the new student?" a bold Ravenclaw asked. Ed glanced at her - or it might have been a 'he', Ed wasn't quite sure.

"Yeah," he replied nonchalantly, turning his expressionless mask back to the book he was currently littering with bright colours.

"I wasn't sure i-if you realised since you're new, but, um... breakfast started fifteen minutes ago."

"I know," Ed assured her/him lightly, refusing to give eye contact when s/he stood there awkwardly waiting for it.

Eventually, s/he just nodded her/his head uncertainly and briskly strode out of the room, leaving Ed to his own devices once more.

Ed sighed. Even if he did stay here, he'd still get the stragglers and breakfast-skippers constantly nagging him about why he wasn't going to breakfast. He may as well just go.

So, with minimal reluctance, he dragged Luna out of her deep sleep and made his way to the Great Hall.

* * *

><p>Oh, how he wished he'd stayed in the common room.<p>

_Or __I __could__'__ve __at __least __left __Luna __there_, he added as a grumpy afterthought.

Still, Ed bravely decided that rumours never slowed the Fullmetal Alchemist down before, so why should they now? Just because Hogwarts consisted of about three times as many people as Central Headquarters, none of which were mature enough to resist gossiping, and every time he passed someone's seat (especially someone female), they'd exclaim mockingly, "Oh no! I wouldn't want to _catch __the __weirdness __off __him_, would I?" and then burst out in shrieks of laughter that made Ed want to smash their heads against a wall - or preferably five - it was, essentially, no different from being teased in the military.

Apparently, as he later discovered from a seemingly nice girl at the Ravenclaw table, Draco Malfoy (_the __bastard_) had caught Ed and Luna wandering around the corridors last night while he was sneaking out of the infirmary to get some fresh air. Rumours had immediately erupted, of course, the favourites being that he and Luna were secretly engaged, Luna had 'infected' him with her weirdness and they were now both completely insane, or, what Malfoy had apparently been spreading was that he and Luna had been caught making out in the corridor by Filch, who had dragged them to Dumbledore who had subsequently given them each three weeks' detention.

"_Bullshit!_" Ed had loudly and rather violently exclaimed upon the news, scaring most of the Ravenclaws half to death with his murderous glare that Luna (_sitting __right __next __to __me!_) was somehow managing to ignore.

However, Ed decided not to worry about it too much. He was sure he could find something to annoy Malfoy with, and he never really liked any of the students here anyways. Well, apart from Ron and his bunch, but they didn't seem like the types to spread rumours.

"Come on, Minnie, or we're going to be late!" a Ravenclaw girl from somewhere down the table shouted rather urgently. Ed didn't know why. Class didn't start for another fifteen minutes.

Ed wondered what _his_ next class was. He knew he had History of Magic and Transfiguration at some point today, but he didn't know when, and what the other four lessons were. His brow furrowed in concentration as he sipped pumpkin juice and tried in vain to remember his first lesson.

"Don't eat that," a dreamy voice spoke from beside him as he picked up a strange leaf. "The squirmples always put poisonous herbs on them."

Ed blinked. "Oh!" he exclaimed, his fist hitting the table. "Herbology!" He grinned at Luna, hurriedly getting up out of his seat. "Thanks."

Luna smiled distantly at him. "You're welcome."

Ed abandoned the red leaf and sprinted towards the greenhouse. It wouldn't do any good to be late for his very first Herbology lesson, would it? _Damn __this __castle __for __being __so __fucking __big_.

* * *

><p>"... As some of you know, this is a mandrake root. Now, mandrake roots can be very..."<p>

"So," Ron whispered eagerly from Ed's left. "Are the rumours true?"

There was a suspicious thump and a muffled cry, alerting a few of the students to Ron's newfound home on the floor and Ed's too-innocent-to-be-good smile.

"Geez, mate! I was only asking!" Ron huffed, getting back up, not bothering to dust himself off.

Ed glared.

"So..." Ron started again, more timidly this time, "_Are_ they true?"

Ed sighed irritably, resting his chin in his left palm. "No. Well, the part about Luna and I being out after curfew is true, but none of the rumours are true. We're not engaged, I'm not insane and we were _definitely_ not making out."

"Oh." Ron looked almost disappointed, and Ed considered hitting him again, before deciding the teacher wouldn't overlook a second yelp and I would probably land him in detention. Again.

Ed answered the unasked question lingering in the air. "I found Luna in the Room of Requirement yesterday evening, and we fell asleep. We woke up, and it was the middle of the night. We tried to sneak out, but Filch caught us and took us to Dumbledore. And no, he didn't give us detention."

Ron nodded in understanding, mouthing 'Oh.'

"Seriously," Ed grumbled under his breath, "Do people here have nothing better to do other than spread rumours?"

Ron grinned.

* * *

><p>Hermione's last sentence to him still rung clear in Ed's head. <em>'<em>_Don__'__t __get __into __trouble._' Unfortunately, had Hermione known Ed better, she would have known saying such a thing was pointless as Ed always got himself into trouble, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.

Ed hoped he wouldn't get into trouble tonight, though, because he'd had enough trouble for today, thank you very much.

Ed wandered aimlessly down the corridor. Class had ended about twenty minute ago, and he'd insisted to Harry that he wanted to go on a walk, and yes, he'd come back soon and no, he wouldn't do something stupid.

Ed tried his very best to keep that last promise, but unfortunately, doing stupid things was in his nature, and when he felt himself wander past the Room of Requirement, he just couldn't resist.

Ed walked up to the wall, glaring at it as if that would somehow magically make it open. "Luna...?" he dared to whisper.

A pair of dark, intricately designed wooden doors suddenly materialised, reminding Edward of the Gate, a thought that churned the bile in his stomach up until it neared his gullet.

The doors soon swung open, though, saving Edward from reminiscing memories he'd rather forget, revealing a smiling Luna, dressed in a woolen winter coat, clutching a mug of what Ed guessed was hot chocolate.

"Hello, Ed," she giggled, before patting the seat next to her on the burgundy sofa in front of a six-foot-tall fireplace.

"Yo." Ed grinned, plopping himself on the edge of the seat and leaning as far forward as he could without actually jumping into the fire. It was the end of autumn, and as much as he enjoyed parading around in a tank top, his ports hurt rather agonizingly, and Ed was grateful for the warmth now turning the tips of his automail fingers a dull red as he shoved them into the flames.

There was a comfortable silence for what Ed guessed must have been half an hour, though it felt like five minutes to the boy whose head was so full it was overflowing with knowledge and the girl whose head was so empty she could barely give you the time of day.

"Ed," Luna whispered.

Ed murmured, "Mm?"

"Who is the 'Fullmetal Alchemist'?"

The simple sentence hit Ed like a ton of bricks. He'd completely forgotten about that cursed Potions lesson. And unfortunately for him, Luna might've been crazy, but she definitely wasn't stupid. There was no point in lying. "It's one of my names."

"What does it mean?"

Ed gave her a curious expression.

"All names have meanings, silly. 'Luna' means 'the moon', and 'Edward' means 'wealthy guardian'. What does 'the Fullmetal Alchemist' mean?"

Ed stared. Then, though it was barely audible, he laughed. "'The Fullmetal Alchemist' is part of my official title back in my home country. When a person passes the State Alchemy exam, they're given a title like that one."

Luna smiled. "I see." A pause. "What's a State Alchemy exam?"

Ed leant close to Luna's ear and whispered, "Can I trust you?"

Luna whispered back, "I made a promise to the jinkles that if I ever told a secret, I'd perform _Avada __Kedavra_ on myself."

Ed smiled. "In which case, I can tell you. Luna, have you ever heard of alchemy?"

Luna nodded. "Isn't it some specialised wandless magic?"

Ed shook his head. "In a way, I guess, but it isn't really anything like magic at all. Alchemy is a science. In alchemy, you must abide by the law of Equivalent Exchange and Conservation of Mass. You can't make something out of thin air, or change a dog into a teaspoon, for example. The law of Equivalent Exchange means that you can't receive something without giving something up of equal value in return."

Luna nodded.

"Alchemy requires a transmutation circle - a circle with lots of other shapes, lines and ancient runes in it. My brother and I don't need one though, which is why I passed the exam.

"I won't go into the details of alchemy, as it would take a few months to explain everything. But I'll say that there are three stages to an alchemical 'transmutation' - as in transfiguration - and every transmutation needs these three stages, no matter how simple or complex the transmutation is. They are analysis, deconstruction and reconstruction. First you analyse the materials and the elements they contain. Then, you deconstruct the materials into the basic elements, and finally you reconstruct the elements to form a new material, i.e. the outcome of the transmutation."

"And the State Alchemy exam is an exam to see how good your alchemy is?"

"Not quite. The State Alchemy exam is an exam that only the best of the best pass. They assess your alchemical skills, and if you pass you become a certified State Alchemist, and you're given an official title like mine."

Luna nodded absently. "You passed this exam." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I was the youngest person ever to pass - I was only twelve at the time." Ed chuckled.

Luna smiled in understanding. "You didn't tell anyone because it would just cause complications."

"Exactly," Ed sighed.

Luna turned to face Ed fully, and slowly put a finger to her lips. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

Ed smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

><p><strong>Teehee~ I love the Room of Requirement, don't I? :3<strong>

**How was it? I have a sinking feeling it doesn't live up to the standard I'd like it to... X3**


	7. Six: Secrets

**I am _so, so_ sorry for the lateness. I got caught up in Christmas, and this chapter has been sitting on my computer half-finished for nearly a month. But I hope everyone will forgive me xD;;**

**And so, with the apology over, I (belatedly) bring you the sixth chapter of _There are Too Many Weirdoes in this Castle_! :D**

**Disclaimer~**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six - Secrets<strong>

"You coming to Hagrid's with us, Ed?" Ron asked, snapping Ed out of his reverie.

Ed shook his head sloppily. "Nah. Detention with McGonagall."

Harry snickered. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Just don't misbehave and land yourself in even more detentions than you already have," she warned, before the three parted ways, exchanging half-hearted waved and cheers of 'goodbye'.

Ed sighed as soon as they were around the corner and out of earshot. For some reason, he was just so damn tired. _Maybe all that late-night studying's catching up to me._

Ed wandered into Professor McGonagall's office ten minutes late, fingering her phoenix-feather quill on the shelf as he passed it.

McGonagall looked slightly annoyed at his unpunctuality, but didn't voice her irritation out loud. Ed had failed to arrive to a single one of her detentions on time. She had mentally given in, eventually, and was just glad he was showing up at all. "Nice to see you, Mr. Elric," she greeted curtly, her image the epitome of prim and proper perfection.

"Yo," he greeted back casually, his mismatched hands in his leather pockets, distantly admiring the various murals adorning her office walls with a somewhat thoughtful expression.

McGonagall didn't interrupt his hazy appreciation of her decorating skills for quite a while. He was so rarely in this calm, soothed sort of mood, and she was loath to disturb it. He was usually so uptight and sarcastic; it was strangely interesting seeing him acting somewhat like Luna Lovegood. _Perhaps the girl really is rubbing off on him_, McGonagall mused while organizing the scattered parchment on her mahogany desk.

"What am I doing today?" he asked eventually, staring intently at McGonagall, though she didn't feel unnerved as she usually did when he did that.

"Today," she started, preparing herself for the outburst that was sure to come, "we will be _talking_."

Ed's eyes widened. "What?"

"I am... _curious_ about your situation, Mr. Elric. I know you're not a regular student, and that you're hiding many things. That much is obvious."

Ed took a seat in front of her desk. When her tone was hard like that, he knew there was no way to get out of the predicament he'd gotten himself into without digging himself further into the hole. He sighed heavily, though McGonagall thought the sigh sounded more like one of a pressured adult than that of a stressed teenager. "What do you wanna know?"

McGonagall replied, almost too fast, "I'd like to know why you hate Transfiguration."

Ed snorted. "Protective of your subject, huh? Don't worry, it has nothing to do with you." He paused. "Most of the time."

McGonagall's lips pursed at the last comment, but she ignored it in favour of the question that had been scratching and clawing at the back of her mind since he'd first refused to transfigure anything. "That doesn't answer my question, Mr. Elric."

Ed's smirk grew into a dour scowl. "It wasn't supposed to," he growled.

"Why would you refuse to answer my question if you haven't got anything to hide?" McGonagall asked brusquely.

"Because I don't wanna fucking explain it!" Ed snapped back.

The two continued to glare at each other for a full five minutes before McGonagall huffed loudly and stood up, her chin high in the air as she strode out of her office, leaving a grumbling Edward thinking about how stupid he was.

* * *

><p>McGonagall couldn't erase the thoughts of her detention with Edward from her mind. No matter what she tried to distract herself with, for the rest of that evening (and indeed most of the night) she just couldn't stop thinking about it. Both times she'd accused him of keeping secrets, he hadn't denied it. She knew he was hiding something, and she also knew that Edward knew that.<p>

So now, the main question was: What was he hiding that could possibly make him detest transfiguration with every shred of his soul?

She decided she couldn't bear it anymore. She got out of her four-poster bed, spared the Victorian grandfather clock in the corner of the room a passing glance and proceeded to get dressed. She didn't doubt Albus would be awake - she'd often gone to see him in the middle of the night about things before, and every time he'd been awake without fail. It was five o'clock in the morning - she knew she would be getting up in an hour anyway. It didn't make much of a difference if she got up now, anyway.

She gracefully pulled on her emerald velvet cloak and made her way to Dumbledore's office. She whispered, "Let me through," to the stone gargoyle (she hadn't yet been informed of the new password), which promptly yawned and wandered out of her way, thankfully, without the password.

She rapped on the Headmaster's door, and within seconds Albus was greeting her and ushering her in, offering her a cup of freshly-brewed tea and commenting on how pretty the stars looked tonight.

The man would never fail to amaze her.

She politely took the tea and sipped it idly as she wondered how to go about this tactfully. Eventually, she gave up with subtlety, and she breeched the subject with, "Mr. Elric doesn't seem too fond of my lessons, Albus."

Said man smiled mischievously, reminding McGonagall of the Weasley twins, and replied in the most unhelpful way possible. "It looks so, doesn't it?"

Minerva set down her porcelain teacup on his desk in front of which she was seated. She didn't meet his sparkling gaze as she said, "I was wondering, Albus, if you knew anything about _why_."

Dumbledore chuckled. "You're fairly observant, aren't you, Minerva? I should have guessed as much, really." He sighed playfully, the smile still tugging at the corners of his withered lips.

Minerva snapped her head up in an uncharacteristic show of excitement and curiosity. "Could you tell me why, Albus?"

Dumbledore's smile grew broader. "It's - _they're_ - not my secrets to tell, unfortunately." He tilted his head to the side slightly, thinking. "Although," he started slowly, "I suppose you will be 'worthy' of such information if you can manage to obtain it from Edward himself."

McGonagall sighed. "I've tried. I've tried, Albus, but the boy won't say a thing."

Dumbledore chuckled wryly. "I'd advise against calling him a 'boy' in his general company, Minerva."

McGonagall narrowed her eyes slightly in confusion. "Why ever not? I call the seventh-years 'boys', and they don't seem to mind."

Dumbledore's smile twisted into something dangerously close to a smirk. "Edward isn't a seventh-year, Minerva."

McGonagall knew those words held pure truth - Elric was a fifth-year, and a rather strange one at that - but she also knew those words held some warning, some hidden meaning, and she was sure it would lead her closer to the answers she so desperately desired. "That's the truth, Albus." She glanced at the grandfather clock. _Five-thirty_, it read. "I best be off."

Dumbledore nodded, smiling again. "It seems so."

McGonagall had her hand on the polished brass doorknob and was about to twist it when she heard Dumbledore whisper, clear as day, "Don't forget, Minerva - curiosity killed the cat."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Ed - <em>Ed!<em>" Hermione called out as she jogged across to the Ravenclaw table, where Ed was studiously studying a book labeled _'Time and Its Components'_.

Ed lifted his nonchalant gaze up to meet her eyes, though what he found instead was a newspaper apparently trying to communicate with him. "Hermione?"

"Yes!" the newspaper replied in a suspiciously Hermione-like voice, before shaking itself and pointing with a slender finger towards the front page headline.

Ed's eyes widened, and all thought of talking newspapers immediately vanished from his mind as he took in the four deadly words printed in bold black-and-white.

"'Strange Student at Hogwarts'," the newspaper squeaked, before turning itself around and reading itself out loud. "News has reached the Ministry of Magic of a queer new student's arrival at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The first transfer student in Hogwarts's history, he transferred into the fifth year exactly one week ago. According to witnesses, he carries a metal right arm and long golden hair, and he wears nothing but black. Some say he is a cult rebel-"

"_What?_"

"-but the general consensus is that he is a foreigner Headmaster Albus Dumbledore let in behind the scenes. His arm is clean of the Dark Mark, but the Ministry would still advise his avoidance. Written by _Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic._"

The newspaper finished reading itself, and wish trembling hands, passed itself over to Ed, who grabbed it harshly, creasing the corner. Ed skimmed the article once more himself, as if to check the newspaper hadn't read itself wrongly, before slowly turning his horror- and shock-filled gape towards Hermione, standing next to him with wide eyes and shaking hands. A logical part of Ed's brain noted that it _had_ been Hermione, and that newspapers weren't talking to him - but the majority of his brain power went towards one single thought, and all the millions of implications and possibilities that went along with it.

"_That's me_," he whispered, barely audible. Of course, everyone heard him - the Great Hall had become deathly silent by the second line Hermione had read.

Hermione nodded almost hysterically, before dragging him away from the book now lying forgotten on the table and towards the Gryffindor table.

Ed plunked down dazedly on the bench - though on the outside he seemed to be in a total state of shock, his brain was whirring with everything he once learned, everything he was learning and everything he was about to learn once he figured out the message behind the jabbing paper.

Before Ron or Harry could question him, however, a sharp voice cut through the quiet murmurings arising throughout the Hall, "Edward Elric!"

Minerva McGonagall's voice echoed around the grand room as she marched up to Ed and proceeded to drag him down the aisle and out of the room by his loose, long hair. "You are _going_ to explain this to me, Mr. Elric, if it's the last thing you do."

The great wooden doors slammed shut behind them, and immediately conversation, rumours and insolent laughter erupted from the other side.

McGonagall didn't wait until they were in her office. She stopped him a few yards away from the door, blocking his path, and all but screamed, "_What is this?_"

Ed knew the implications of the article. Not only had it accused him of being an untrustworthy foreigner, it had also shed an unwanted spotlight on Dumbledore, accusing him of doing something 'behind the scenes' to get Ed accepted, and it had begun to chisel away at the school's perfect record.

And for some reason, it appeared McGonagall was blaming _him_ for this. _Honestly_, Ed thought, exasperated, _it's not _my_ fault I exist. _He scowled slightly. _And it's _definitely_ not my fault that I got sent on this mission._

"What is it?" she repeated, as if Ed couldn't hear her perfectly well the first time.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" he snarled, almost bring his teeth at the professor.

She drew in a huge lungful of breath before letting it back out again in a stressed half-groan half-sigh, and turned to Edward. She started again in softer, but just as firm tones, "I know it isn't specifically you who is at fault here, Mr. Elric, but the article is about _you_, so I plan to address _you_ about it."

Ed winced. "I know," he grudgingly admitted, turning into military man mode. Now wasn't the time for childish tantrums about whose fault it was - if he'd learned anything from six years in the military, he'd learned that. "I just... don't know what to do. I have absolutely nothing that I can prove as false in that article, and without knowing who exactly it was who told the Ministry, I can't do much in redemption, either."

McGonagall blinked, slightly perplexed at this new course in behaviour, though she shrugged it off as embarrassment, stress and a need to correct the article before things got out of hand. She sighed. "I am aware of that, Mr. Elric," she muttered, though not irritably. "Anyway," she clapped her hands loudly twice, as if to signal a new change in subject, "If you do not get going soon, Mr. Elric, you will be late for first period."

* * *

><p>"Man, that was <em>tiring<em>!" Ron complained as the trio and Ed strolled down the corridor after Divination. "I don't know how the old bat does it. How can she see _anything_ in those teacups? All I saw were _leaves_."

Harry smirked slightly. "That doesn't mean you had to say it to her face."

Ron scowled, clouting Harry hard around the back of the head.

Ed stopped abruptly as they reached a junction in the maze of hallways, and the trio was a good twenty metres away by the time they noticed. Ed always seemed so distant to them, so lost in his own thoughts - it was hard to notice him sometimes.

"Ed?" Hermione called down the quiet corridor. "Where are you going?"

Ed nodded in the direction of a well-concealed spiral staircase to his right. "Owlery," he said with a grin. "_Family's_ expecting a letter." He spat the word 'family', and Harry wondered just what his family was like for Ed to despise them so much.

"Oh. I guess we'll see you soon?" Hermione said questioningly. Ed was always so unpredictable in his behaviour - one moment he was studying god-knows-what in front of the fireplace and the next he was practicing cartwheels on top of the greenhouses. (Ron insisted that he'd seen Ed actually doing that while staring out of the window during History of Magic, though neither Harry nor Hermione believed him.)

Ed nodded in affirmative, grinning broadly and throwing a lop-sided salute in their direction before leaping up the ascending staircase, leaving three utterly baffled wizards in his wake.

Harry and Ron shrugged it off, however, as just another facet to Edward's four-dimensional personality, and continued on their way to the cosy Gryffindor common room, dragging a reluctant and very suspicious Hermione behind them.

* * *

><p>Ed, meanwhile, was struggling to contain his laughter at the trio's identical perplexed expressions of bewilderment from his craftily hidden spying place half-way up the stairs. <em>That ought to confuse them<em>, he thought sadistically. Though Ed was, primarily, warm-hearted and caring (though rather rough around the edges), he thoroughly enjoyed a good trick every now and then. His mangled, over-burdened childhood had led to an immature and childish adulthood, one which irritated even the most patient housewife and angered the calmest military commander.

Ed snickered to himself one last time before bounding off towards the Owlery; he'd spotted his owl not-so-subtly clawing at the window during one of his classes that morning with a roll of something white in its claws - which Ed had to assume was a letter - and, knowing it was probably his moron of a Colonel demanding a report, decided to check it out that night, when he'd be guaranteed at least a little privacy.

By the time Ed had trailed along the seventeenth corridor, he was utterly convinced that the castle was somehow plotting against him, and he was never to be allowed to find the Owlery. He'd only gotten a brief (and rather unhelpful) description of how to get half-way there from a boy named Dean, who slept in the bed opposite his. Unfortunately, Dean seemed to have assumed that Ed knew how to navigate the moving staircases.

_I've been walking for nearly a whole fucking hour already! _Ed's irritated frown was growing deeper (and scarier) by the second, and his mismatched footsteps were slowly becoming dangerously close to resembling stomps as he angrily trudged down the seemingly endless corridors. _Where the _fuck_ is the Owlery?_

Twenty-seven minutes later, Ed found himself at the foot of a spiral staircase twirling upwards into pitch blackness. He thought that it made sense if the Owlery was at the top of a tower, so he sighed and began to march up the steps, careful not to make too much noise lest he awake a portrait.

When he reached the room awaiting him, he almost danced in joy; he'd _finally_ found his destination, and his owl - he couldn't remember its name - was waiting for him on the balcony, a roll of parchment clutched in its sharp, pointy beak.

He slowly approached the animal, forcefully reminded of his many past incidents with animals that hadn't ended too well. He grimaced. "Here, it's okay," he whispered when the owl began to back up and fluff up its feathers. "I'm a nice guy, it's okay, I'm not gonna, uh, hit you or something."

Ed, in desperation, shoved his automail in the owl's face. "Look, it's me, Edward Elric! The Fullmetal Alchemist!" he hissed.

The shiny metal limb glinting in the pale moonlight seemed to convince the fickle owl, as it hopped forward and dropped the parchment in front of Ed, startling him some.

"Damn animal," Ed muttered as he bent down to pick up the paper. He noticed, as he settled into a comfortable sitting position on the floor where the letter had dropped, the startlingly red military seal on the back of the envelope. _Definitely from Mustang._

Ed tore open the letter, ripping the paper slightly in the process (not that he cared much) and unrolled it, feeling awkwardly like some ancient scribe.

He read the letter quickly but thoroughly - it hadn't been written in code, as it was an official communication letter, so it took him less than a minute to read.

_My dear subordinate Fullmetal, _

_How are you? I sincerely hope everything is progressing well on your side. I've got a new girlfriend since you've been gone, and she's dying to meet you, so do try to work a bit faster._

_You've been at Hogwarts for a while, now, Fullmetal, and I've found myself wondering recently where your report is. If you wouldn't mind, I would like to know how things are going._

_There has been no progression in the war with Drachma - at this rate, we might get away with no violence at all. Nevertheless, I would still be glad if you could strengthen ties with Hogwarts in case of a rebellion and possibly a full-out war._

_I wish you well._

_Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist_

Ed frowned, ignoring the main part of the letter positively dripping with sarcasm, squinting at the messy small print at the bottom of the page.

_P.S. Do your job or I'm telling everyone that you're considering getting a sex change._

Ed's eyes widened, and, temporarily blinded by fury, he growled (rather loudly), "_You bastard of a Colonel!_"

"...Ed? Is that you?"

Ed started suddenly at the sound of another person's voice, squeaking ungraciously and dropping the letter on his lap.

Hermione popped her head around the door, her wavy brown tresses hanging partially over her face. "Why are you up here so late? It's gone midnight. You should be in bed."

Ed's heart was still thumping ferociously in his chest, and he was too busy mentally beating himself up for not noticing her presence to take in what she was saying. "... Huh?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and stepped into the room, her arms akimbo. "I _said_, Ed, that you should be in bed right now! It's late!" Hermione's eyes trailed to the slightly crumpled piece of paper in Ed's lap. "A letter?"

Ed nodded carefully, his head filled with thinking up a hundred different excuses to refuse to show it to her if she asked.

She took a small step forward, her arms dropping from her sides in curiosity. "Who's it from?"

"A f-friend." Ed almost choked on the word 'friend' - the one term he thought he would never use to describe the Colonel - and had to consciously restrain himself from throwing up all over the polished stone floor.

Hermione raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

Ed gave an unconvincing nod.

Hermione reached out for it, and Ed leapt to his feet, skidding towards another wall a few feet too far for Hermione's dangerous grip.

"Er... Ed?" Hermione withdrew her hand from thin air, fixing Ed with a perplexed stare.

Ed scratched the back of his head, chuckling nervously. "It's, uh... kinda private."

"Oh."

The two stood there for a few moments in a strained silence, before Ed decided to change the subject.

"So, um, why are you here exactly?"

Hermione blinked, smiling slightly in bemusement. "The Headmaster told me to patrol the corridors for people wandering around out of hours. Apparently, one of the prefects is sick, so I'm standing in for them."

Ed could almost feel the think aroma of pride wafting from Hermione's direction as she said this. It reminded him annoyingly of Mustang. "Right."

"But the Headmaster gave you permission to wander around after curfew, so I don't see a problem with it." She stood there for another few seconds, deep in thought, before she turned back to face Ed and smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow then - or, later day, even!" And with that, she trotted out of the door, obligingly shutting it quietly behind her.

As soon as her footsteps were out of Ed's earshot, he slumped noisily to the ground with a sound resembling a groan, a sigh and a sob all mixed in one. "That was _too_ fucking _close_."

Ed glanced back down at the letter crumpled and creased up in his automail palm. His brow furrowed, and his mouth set itself into an enraged frown. "That bastard."

* * *

><p><strong>How was it? Did it live up to your expectations? Was it worth the wait? Please tell me in a review! X3<strong>


	8. Seven: Lime and Orange Fruit Cake

**It's been less than a month this time! *Dodges tomatoes***

**Anyway, no time for a long author's note because it's gone midnight here and I really shouldn't be awake. Plus, my keyboard is dreadfully loud when I type on it. So, on with the story.**

**Disclaimer~**

**(Edited to sort some errors out~ :D)**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven - Lime and Orange Fruit Cake<strong>

"_Shit!_" Ed fumbled with the two pieces of wood lying limply in his hands, joined by a rather fragile-looking piece of glowing... something. Ed wasn't sure what it was.

But that didn't matter right now, because it was _broken_.

And if even Edward Elric realised that breaking something was bad, then it must be pretty damn important, right?

He quickly scanned the surrounding area (namely the Gryffindor common room) for fellow students and, after drawing a blank, hunched over the splintered wood and clapped his hands as softly as possible. It was gone midnight, after all, and he certainly didn't want to wake anyone up.

He placed each hand gently on each of the two wooden halves (_Thank god it was a clean break_) and watched, tense, as the luminous blue light lit up the dim light in all shades of brightness. Not exactly discreet, especially since he was supposed to be keeping his alchemy a secret, but he had been told it was necessary for emergencies. And this was very much an emergency, right?

He grinned as the light faded and in his mismatched palms lay his wand, good as new.

Unfortunately, that grin was quickly swiped off his face as an intrusive voice was heard swearing bluntly (and really rather loudly) from the foot of the staircase to the boys' dormitory.

He swirled around, panic etched onto his face. "R-Ron?"

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron, still in his pyjamas, was gawking at the newly-fixed wand that he swore had been broken by a clumsy Ed and a pile of heavy books a second ago.

"Um, that was-"

"Ron?"

Ed swore.

Harry rubbed at his green, spectacle-less eyes, squinting to make out the small, tense form of Edward in the light of only the fireplace. "Ed? What are you doing up this late?"

"I-I was-"

"That was bloody _amazing_!" Ron gaped at Ed slack-jawed, a look of awe and excitement spreading across his freckled features.

Ed glanced around nervously, hoping Harry wouldn't ask what 'that' was. "Uh, thanks."

Harry glanced between the two other occupants of the room, a totally nonplussed expression screwing up his face. "Er, did I miss something?"

Roy whipped around to the boy beside him. "Yeah! It was really amazing. Ed fixed his wand! Without a wand! And it was all glowing and everything-"

"Wait," Harry cut Ron off mid-ramble. "He broke his wand?"

"Yeah," Ron started again eagerly, "and then he fixed it again! But his wand was already broken, so he couldn't have used his wand-"

The rest of Ron's overflowing word volcano went ignored as Harry cast a suspicious gaze over Ed, who grit his teeth and began mentally screaming the vilest curses he could think of.

"Wandless magic?" Harry asked cautiously, taking a far more sensible approach to the whole subject than his dumbly impressed friend.

Ed closed his eyes, sighing gruffly and shaking his head. "Alchemy."

He received two blank faces in return, before Harry's eyes lit up and he let out an, "Oh!" of realisation. "Hermione was talking about that the other day! She was reading that book about it... But wait, isn't it a dead art?"

Ed shook his head, grinning weakly. "Not where I'm from."

"Where are you from?" Ron interjected.

Ed tapped the side of his nose. "Somewhere far away."

* * *

><p>"Hmmm." Hermione stared at Harry for a while, her face a mixture of surprise, distrust and thought. "You say he fixed it without any sort of wand?"<p>

Ron snorted, rolling his eyes. "He _broke_ his wand. That's the whole reason he was _fixing_ it, 'Mione."

Hermione whapped Ron on the arm. "I'm not stupid, Ronald! But did he clearly say himself that he was using alchemy? He could have used a potion or something."

Harry nodded, ignoring Ron's sulking over his surely bruised arm. "He said it himself."

"In that case," Hermione concluded with a nod to herself, "we're going to go and ask him about it outright."

"But wouldn't that be... a little rude?" Harry offered uncomfortably. "I mean, it _is_ his business and all..."

Hermione shrugged. "He's to blame for answering you truthfully in the first place." She picked up her bag hanging neatly over the bench next to her, straightening. "Now, he isn't in the Great Hall eating breakfast like the rest of us, probably just to avoid us and our questions. So, I'm going to go look for him." At Ron's grouchy expression, she huffed, "Do you want to come or not?"

"Fine," Ron grumbled. "But I wish I didn't have to miss breakfast."

"Don't worry," Hermione assured him as he and Harry threw their bags over their shoulders. "I'll make sure we aren't late for first period."

Ron groaned loudly, earning a smirk and a sympathetic pat on the shoulder form Harry.

"Now..." Hermione murmured. "Where would Ed be if he was trying to avoid us?"

Harry sighed. This was becoming too much like a secret agent mission for his taste. "Uh... The Gryffindor common room?" he offered.

Hermione shook her head, deep in thought. "No... That's too obvious."

"The library?" Ron suggested half-heartedly.

"Again, obvious."

"Detention?"

Harry grinned slightly at Ron's suggestion. "Likely, but we can't exactly walk in on a detention, so we're gonna have to rule that one out."

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks down the deserted corridor. "The Ravenclaw common room! He's friends with Luna Lovegood, isn't he? He might be down there."

Harry nodded and began gently dragging a reluctant Ron down towards the Ravenclaw common room.

"Now what do we do?" Harry sighed when they stood outside the intimidating double doors. "We don't know the password."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't you know _anything_ about Hogwarts? There isn't a password for the Ravenclaw common room. You have to solve a riddle."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances, before saying simultaneously, "I can't solve riddles."

Hermione sighed. "Unfortunately, I'm not very good at them either." She paused in thought. "Well, I guess then there's only one thing to do."

"What?" Ron asked.

"We wait."

Both boys stared at Hermione.

"Are you _kidding_?" Ron complained. "I don't want to wait here for hours doing nothing just to ask about some alchenny thing!"

"Alche_m_y, Ronald."

"I don't bloody care!"

"Shhh, you two! Someone's coming!" Harry hissed, wildly motioning for them to get out of sight and keep it down.

And, to Ron's great joy, Edward came strolling out of the wooden doors, humming tunelessly to himself and carrying a dangerously tall stack of old, tattered books.

"I bet you those books are on alchemy," Hermione whispered to herself as the three sprang out from a concealed place behind a huge, white stone pillar, scaring poor Ed to death.

"What the _fuck_ was that for?" he shrieked at them. "And what the hell are you three doing out here, anyway?" Ed calmed down relatively quickly, though he was still a little flustered and disorientated as the trio joined him on his stroll through the winding corridors.

"We were just... uh..." Harry trailed off, unable to think of a good excuse.

"Cleaning the pillars!" Hermione leapt in with her rather suspicious reason, as Harry shot her a slightly worried sceptical look and Ron discreetly brought a hand to cover his face.

Ed shot her an odd look. "Really? But I swear I saw someone cleaning them yesterday..." he trailed off, deep in thought.

Harry and Ron exchanged shocked but amused glances. Someone_ actually_ cleaned the pillars?

"Oh, wait, no..." Ed muttered to himself. "That might've been Luna."

Hermione laughed nervously. "R-really? We were told they needed c-cleaning... Maybe nobody saw Luna cleaning the pillars so they assumed they hadn't been cleaned...?"

"Maybe..." But Ed didn't seem to be listening anymore.

Harry decided to push their conversation train out of the lake and back onto the track. "So, Ed, where did you learn about alchemy?"

Ron winced as thirteen books fell, clattering, to the floor.

"My house."

Harry bent down, helping Ed stack the scattered books back into a pile. "No, I mean... uh... how?"

"Oh," Ed chuckled. "My... father was a great alchemist. My brother and I used to go through his research notes and teach ourselves."

"Wow," Ron mused, impressed at any show of basic intellect.

"Are you good at alchemy?" Hermione asked as they carried on down a staircase.

Ed nodded. "I guess so. Lots of people tell me I am, so I must be."

"What about your brother? Is he good at alchemy too?" Harry piped up.

"Yeah," Ed said with a fond smile. "In a way, his is better than mine. He pays more attention to detail."

There was a brief silence.

"So, Ed," Hermione started slowly but casually, "where exactly _do_ you come from?"

Ed burst out laughing, much to the surprise of his companions. "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you." He flashed them a playful grin.

That grin was totally innocent and joking, yet Harry could swear Ed was deadly serious. He shivered at the thought.

* * *

><p>"Hush hush, class!" a sickeningly sweet voice called out over the ruckus. "Be quiet, please!"<p>

Eventually, the noise diminished to a quiet hum.

"I am your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. My name is Professor Umbridge, and I hope we can all be friends!" the repulsive woman giggled from the front of the classroom.

Ron groaned, perfectly in sync with the rest of the class. Even Hermione looked disappointed with the choice of teacher.

"Now, now," she reprimanded lightly. "That isn't the way to speak to your teacher, now, is it?" she giggled again, though it sounded more like a drunken hiccup.

Ed rolled his eyes. He quietly murmured, so only Ron next to him could hear, "Oh, sorry, you're our teacher? I thought you were one of the first-year transfiguration experiments that escaped from the lab."

Ron clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter erupting within.

Luckily, Professor Frog didn't seem to notice, and continued with her 'let's all be the best of friends' speech.

Malfoy, released from the hospital the day before, snickered, "As if I could be friends with something like _that_."

The rest of Slytherin started laughing, and, much to Harry's worry, he found himself agreeing.

"Now," she started sweetly, "We will be working out of the textbooks, so I hope everyone remembered to bring theirs. If you have forgotten yours, please share with the person next to you."

A third of the class began whispering to their neighbours.

A few minutes into the lesson, a Hufflepuff hand shot up.

"Yes, dear?"

She asked timidly, "When are we going to be doing practical work?"

The frog woman blinked. "_Practical_?" She pronounced the word slowly, as if it had never had the bad luck to be said by those lips before. "I believe you misunderstood me. We will not be doing practical work in this lesson."

That sent the class into an uproar.

"Why not?" a Gryffindor cried out.

"Because it is dangerous, and the Ministry has forbidden me to endanger my students!" the professor bellowed, silencing the class.

_Oh well_, Ed thought as he sighed inwardly. _This lesson isn't going to be much use to me if all we're doing is reading some textbook. I could do that in my free time._ He glanced around at his infuriated classmates. _May as well do something worthwhile._

"Oi," Ron whispered from beside him.

Ed turned, one eyebrow raised in question.

"I forgot my textbook," he said with a sheepish grin.

Ed smirked slightly. "Have mine. It's not like I'm gonna be using it anyway."

Ron's expression drew into one of confusion as Ed lightly flung his textbook onto Ron's desk. "Why not?"

Ed brought an automail finger up to his lips, confusing poor Ron even more.

"Please turn to page seven-hundred and..."

_Now_, Ed thought, _where did I put that paper?_

He secretively rummaged through his bag, his face scrunching up in annoyance when he couldn't find the slip of paper he'd picked up just in case earlier that morning. He gave up on his bag and began to search though his pockets; his eyes lit up as the familiar crinkle of creased paper caught his ears.

He gently tugged the paper out of his front trouser pocket, wincing at the noise, before flattening it out between his desk and his automail hand when Professor Umbridge swirled around to face the blackboard.

Ed uncapped his fountain pen (he refused to use a quill) and began hurriedly scribbling on the crumpled scrap of paper, much to Ron's interest.

After a few minutes, Ron simply couldn't contain his bubbling excitement any longer, and he whispered (rather loudly), "What're you writing?"

Unfortunately, it was a little _too_ loudly.

"_Writing_? But I do believe I asked everyone to _read_ chapter seventy-four, not make notes on it. Am I mistaken?" Umbridge glanced around the class, taking in every unopened notebook and unused pen in sight. Her smile turned a touch sinister. "Mr. Weasley," she asked slyly, "who, exactly, were you questioning on the matter?"

At Ron's garbled throat noises, Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows and batted her eyelashes unappealingly, leaving Ed unsure of whether he should have eaten so much breakfast that morning.

"U-um... It was... no-"

Ed rolled his eyes. "It was me, Professor."

Umbridge blinked a few times, eyeing up the new transfer student, golden eyes, tanned skin, metal arm and all. _Where did they say he was from again...?_ "Oh really, Mr. Elric?" She trotted over to his seat in the middle row, staring scathingly at the crinkled paper lying in plain sight on Ed's desk, then met Ed's gaze, before glancing back down at the paper and picked it up between her chubby index finger and thumb, as if it might bite.

Ron glanced worriedly at Ed, but Ed shook it off with a small smirk of confidence as the pink-clad perfume shop began to slowly read out what she could make out of Edward's untidy scrawl.

"'First, mix flour and sugar in bowl. Rub in three quarters of a bucket of-'" she cut herself off, squinting at the page for a moment before continuing, "'-margarine, but not too fast... Next, pour the... cow secretion?'" she gave the paper a perplexed look, "into the mould and add lime and orange juice-' what on _earth_ is this, Mr. Elric?" she shrieked in frustrating puzzlement.

Ed tried his best not to smirk. Honestly, he did. "I believe the title explains itself, Professor."

Umbridge glanced up at the five words inked into the top of the page and double underlined. "'Lime and orange fruit cake'...?" she trailed off, a look of bafflement crossing her snub features, before shaking her head and slamming the paper back onto Ed's desk. "Mr. Elric, why are you writing a cooking recipe during my class?" she screeched.

Ed shrugged. "My friend wants it in time for dinner, to make for his girlfriend, so I have to send it off before lunchtime, and I didn't have any time to write it this morning."

Professor Umbridge turned as red as a tomato. "_Detention_, Mr. Elric! My class is for _learning_, not for writing messages to friends!" With that said, she stalked back to the front of the classroom, furiously muttering, "The Headmaster will hear about this!" under her breath.

As soon as the chaos was over and the tooth-rottingly sweet smile was back in place, Ron chuckled in amazement. "You really did all that just to write a recipe?"

Ed winked. "Not just any recipe."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Ed," Luna greeted dreamily as everyone hustled and bustled themselves out of the classroom.<p>

Ed offered her a placid smile. "Hey."

"What was that all about? You know, with the recipe?" she asked as she fell into step beside him.

Ed sighed light-heartedly. "Really, it's just a recipe for a friend. Okay, so he doesn't want it _today_, but so what if I stretched the truth slightly over that minor detail?" Ed grinned.

Luna smiled dazedly. "You're not a very good liar, you know. I'm surprised anyone fell for that at all."

Ed's eyes widened. "You..."

Luna nodded distantly, gazing out of the windows as they strolled past. "I'm very good at seeing lies. My father always tells me that. He says my mother was, too. It's a family trait."

Ed was suddenly reminded of Armstrong, and of his blonde-haired, blue-eyed sister, and immediately burst out laughing, much to the current occupants of the corridor's confusion.

"Not many people have that reaction to it, though," Luna commented, gazing on as Ed paused mid-stride and gripped the window ledge to keep his balance.

"Sorry," Ed smiled as the laughter died away, "you just reminded me of someone."

"Oh." Luna smiled. "Is this person very funny? It seems like they are."

"Um..." Ed hesitated. "Sometimes. In a slightly scary and annoying way."

Luna nodded, her gaze glued to the floor.

It took Ed a few seconds to realise. He quickly stammered, "N-not that you're annoying! Or scary! Or something. Just... oh, never mind," he grunted, turning his face away to hide the unwanted heat tinting his cheeks.

Luna giggled dreamily, softly brushing her right hand against his left, and causing another wave of furious blushing to grow on Ed's tanned face.

She gently pulled him around to face her, smiling slightly at Ed's irritated, flustered expression. She leaned forward onto her toes, until her nose was almost touching Ed's, and she whispered onto Ed's lips, her breath scented with melon, causing a warm shiver of some unfamiliar feeling to wriggle and dance down Ed's spine.

"You're interesting."

* * *

><p>Those two words stubbornly refused to leave Ed's still tingling head for the rest of the day. He hardly spoke during lunch, and even Snape's mocking griping at his imperfect potion seemed to have no effect. He was stuck in a hazy dreamland, where all his thoughts eventually floated back to one girl in particular - a girl who'd been plaguing his mind more and more over the past week.<p>

He stopped mid-step down the abandoned corridor, a determined, yet somewhat confused, expression on his face as he physically attempted to shake the annoying thoughts out of his head. Unfortunately, it only resulted in a very dizzy head and a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Dammit," he muttered, trying to overcome the thoughts verbally instead, "where is the damn Owlery?"

You would've thought Ed would've been able to find the Owlery by now, what with the constant reports he was sending Mustang and the letters he was sending Al and Winry. He even sent one to Havoc, and one to Izumi. And yet, _still_ he couldn't manage to navigate the maze of corridors and moving staircases to find the damn place.

Ed stopped after a good forty-five minutes of searching, collapsing with a groan against a nearby staircase, lying face-up, sprawled out along the steps that were beginning to dig uncomfortably into his spine.

Fortunately, though, as luck would have it, when Ed finally opened his eyes to the heavens, he noticed a moving something in the room above him - a moving something strongly resembling an owl.

Ed grinned. He leapt to his feet, scrambling up the stairs in pride. This time it had only taken him forty-five minutes! That was a good ten minutes off his previous record.

When he reached the top, crumpled paper in hand, he glanced around, in search of the troublesome runt that was his owl. He found it, eventually, perched on top of another owl's cage, looking rather impatient.

"Geez, what's got you so wound up?" Ed whispered irritably at it as he strode towards it.

On closer inspection, Ed seemed to have received a letter. It had the military seal on the back, Ed noticed, as he tore it open and dropped the envelope on the floor.

_Fullmetal,_

Ed scowled, sighing inwardly.

_Fullmetal, _

_It's good to hear about your progress with your research. Continue to find out as much as you can. We have many Generals here anxiously waiting for fellow armies to wage war with against Drachma, you know. _

Ed snorted.

_I look forward to your next report, whenever you bother to send one._

_Colonel Roy Mustang_

Ed grimaced. It was short, but sweet. He picked the envelope back up to insert the letter back in, but blinked when he saw another slip of paper shoved in there - definitely not standard military paper.

He yanked it out, unfolding it and scanning its contents, smiling as he did so.

_Nii-san,_

_Yes, it's true. We are engaged. As much as you don't like Mr. Mustang, he _is_ trustworthy. The wedding's due for next March, so I'd be happy if you got back before then. I wouldn't want you to miss your own brother's wedding. Though it would be just like you if you did._

_I'm sure I'd be thrilled to be there! I just wish I could've found an excuse to go there with you. It's too bad I'm not a soldier, or I could've gone in your place. Socialising with people was never your forte, after all, nii-san._

_Oh, and Winry and I adopted a cat! We found her abandoned on the street, poor thing. Winry was nice and let me keep it. I don't know what to call it, though. Do you have any suggestions? Other than 'Satan', please._

_I hope you're doing well._

_Al_

Ed sniggered at the pathetic drawing of a cat Al had included next to his name. It was so pathetic it was cute, though Ed still found himself dreading meeting this cat in person. _And that suggestion last time you picked up a cat was only a joke!_

Ed glanced further down the paper, where he found Winry's familiar cursive writing.

_Ed,_

_I'm glad to hear your research is going okay. I'm sure Al would love to be there, but unfortunately, he's stuck here with me. And the cat. Did he mention the cat? It's so cute! It's white. I wanted to call it 'Milky', but Al wouldn't let me. He said you wouldn't go anywhere near it if it was called that. Which is completely ridiculous of you, by the way._

_How is your automail holding up? You better not beg me to go to wherever you are to fix it up. If you break it, you fix it. I'm not going over to a parallel dimension just to fix a bolt._

_Anyway, I hope you can be back in time for the wedding. It'll be nice to see you again._

_Winry_

Ed smiled, folding up the paper neatly and tucking it back into the envelope with Mustang's letter, which he then inserted into his back pocket. He gestured for his irritable owl to take the envelope he offered it (though it was quite resistant), and he had to practically push it out of the window to get it to fly.

"Honestly," Ed mumbled, "couldn't they've got me a better owl?"

"_Now_ what are you doing here?" Hermione asked from the doorway, causing Ed to emit a high-pitched squeak from his place by the window.

"_What the fuck was that for?_" he hissed loudly, wide-eyed.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Go to bed."

"I can be here if I want," Ed grumbled.

"And why are you here in the first place?"

"None of your damn business!" Ed snapped. "Stop stalking me, for fuck's sake!" And with that, he stomped his way out of the room, fury etching a deep red line in the air behind him.

Hermione stood in the doorway, quite nonplussed. "What on earth…?"

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><p><strong>Extra-long (not really that long, but still) chapter to make up for the not-quite delay~<strong>

**I hope you like it :3 Review~?**


	9. Eight: Too Many Questions

**Herro~! I'm so sorry about not keeping my deadline! XD (Really, I am. _DeathBySugarCube_ was nice enough to spam me into writing this. So thank them. XD)**

**I have a chapter-by-chapter plan of this story, and I'd used up most of it in only 1600 words in this chapter, so somehow I had to create a 1400-word-long conversation between Ed and Luna. XD It was fun, though. :3**

**Disclaimer~**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight - Too Many Questions<strong>

"Up, up, up!" Hermione's sharp voice cut into the boys' morning sleep as she rapped on the dormitory door. "You're all going to be late for class!"

Ron groaned helplessly. "Why...?" he pleaded to no one in particular. "Why does school have to exist?" he wailed, much to the agreement of his roommates.

"Get _up_, Ronald!" Hermione snapped, pounding her fist on the door a few times just for good measure before she strutted back down the staircase.

There was a quiet hum of groans and boys waking up the ones who were miraculously still asleep.

Ron turned to the bed on his right, about to wake up a certain deep sleeper, when he noticed the bed was already vacant. He paused, his arm still halfway over to where Ed's shoulder would have been, as he asked Harry, without turning around, "Did Ed go to bed last night?"

Harry shrugged, though Ron couldn't see it. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"'Cause he's not here."

Harry blinked, before abandoning his un-ironed robes and peering over Ron's shoulder. "Where'd he go?"

Ron rolled his eyes, turning to face his roommate. "I don't know, that's why I'm asking you!"

Harry grinned. "Well, I'm sure whatever he's up to, he'll manage it just fine. You know him."

"Not very well," Ron grumbled, but dropped the subject nonetheless as Hermione shouted up the staircase once more.

* * *

><p>"May I ask why you are asking <em>me<em> about it?" Dumbledore's eyes glinted mischievously behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Because everyone I've asked says you're the cleverest here. So you must know _something_ about time travel," a coffee-less (and therefore quite irritable) Ed asked from the opposite side of the Headmaster's desk.

Dumbledore merely chuckled, much to Edward's chagrin. "It seems you've done your research, because you're asking the right man."

Ed edged imperceptibly closer to the man in question. "Well then, what do you know about it?"

Dumbledore smiled. "I will not tell you everything I know, Edward," he paused to silence Ed's protests, "as I believe that would defeat the purpose of this mission, yes?"

Ed tried not to scowl.

"But," Dumbledore said before Ed could storm out of his office, "I believe there is something you should know from me."

"And what is it?" Ed asked, growing impatient.

"Time travel in this world is only possible with a time turner. If you do not have one, no matter how much knowledge you have on the subject, it cannot be done."

Ed considered this, before mentally scrawling it down on a hypothetical notepad. "Right." His eyes narrowed fractionally, though Dumbledore spotted the action. "Do you... Do you have a time turner?"

Dumbledore smiled broadly. "Yes, but I won't be lending it to you anytime soon, young man."

Ed sighed under his breath, before nodding as he stood up. "Thank you for the information."

"My pleasure, Edward." As Ed had his automail hand resting on the doorknob, Dumbledore called out, "Don't be late for lessons."

Ed smirked, but said nothing as he let himself out and made his way to breakfast.

* * *

><p>"Where were you?" Hermione asked off-handedly as she and Ed took their adjacent seats in their first class of the day, Ancient Runes. "Ron tells me you weren't in bed this morning, and you were late to breakfast."<p>

Ed smirked slightly. If only she knew. "Got up early to read in the library."

Hermione tossed him an approving (though still slightly suspicious) glance before bending over in her chair to draw her books out of her bag. "Studying or just light reading?"

Ed considered for a moment. The mission was compulsory, but he'd gone to ask Dumbledore about it by choice, so... "Both, I suppose."

Hermione hummed in agreement. "I see."

Ed didn't hear Professor Babbling irritably tapping the blackboard to get the chaos to quiet down. Neither did he see the searching gazes Hermione was not-so-subtly sending him from his right. He was lost in a swirl of thoughts as he considered whether to ask possibly the cleverest student in the school about time travel. He knew it would only raise more suspicions, but he could deal with those later. Hermione could provide an easy way out of part of his mission, as he'd overheard her mentioning time travel to Harry early last week, and he'd often spotted her reading about space travel. _Well_, Ed inwardly sighed, _if worse comes to the worst, then I'll tell her everything. She doesn't strike me as the type to gossip, anyway._ With a quick sideward glance, catching one of Hermione's long stares - Hermione quickly snapped her head to face the board and hurried to copy down notes she'd missed - he braced himself.

Instead of going for Ron's rather obvious tactic of 'Pssst!', he decided something more subtle was called for.

Well, for Edward Elric, 'subtle' could mean a whole lot of things between 'unnoticeable' and setting off a four-dimensional firework display inside a transparent whale.

Ed quickly slipped his pen into his hand and began to write notes. He wrote them as fast as possible, with a very loose grip on his pen, and soon enough, with a quick flick at the end of an 'n', said pen was flying out of his hand and under Hermione's desk.

Of course, some students noticed, but that would just make it look more natural.

"Hermione," Ed whispered, pointing at her feet. "My pen."

Hermione turned to face Ed with a look of alarm. That pen hadn't been dropped. It had shot out of his hand like a dart. Just what in heaven was he trying to do?

With a warning glance, Hermione bent to retrieve the pen, mentally sighing when she realised it was, in fact, a pen, and not a quill. She handed it over, relinquishing the feel of smooth plastic pen, and was slightly startled when instead of her fingers or the air, her palm met crinkly paper.

Ed winked cheekily as Hermione rested the hand in her lap to uncurl the scrap of paper. She glanced down when the professor had her back turned, not quite believing she wasn't just reporting this to the teacher immediately.

It read, quite clearly: '_What do you know about time travel?_'

Hermione blinked, squinting at it in case she'd misread the messy handwriting. _What on earth does he want to know about time travel for?_

She tossed him a dirty look for making her pass notes during class, but she scribbled something down on the back and lobbed it at Ed anyway.

Ed caught it with trained precision, immediately drawing his fist down into his lap, just as Hermione had done, before quickly skimming her concise answer. Hid brow furrowed slightly at the words. '_Not much. Impossible without time turner. Why?_'

Ed quickly jotted down a suitable response before holding out his right hand equipped with the note, and Hermione quickly snatched it before Professor Babbling turned around to address the class about a mundane question.

Hermione frowned at the response. It read, '_Private studies. Have you got a time turner?_'

She quickly wrote, '_No, but I've used one_' before passing it sideways again.

Ed unfolded the note, one eyebrow raising as he read her willing information. '_What for?_' he asked.

She gave him a sharp glare, before scrawling (in what Ed assumed to be angry handwriting), '_None of your business.'_

Ed rolled his eyes, deciding he wasn't going to get anywhere with this. '_What about space travel?_'

'_As in, going to the moon?_' Hermione's reply read.

Ed sent her a sarcastic look. '_No, stupid. As if that would happen. I meant travelling between worlds._'

Ed's answer left Hermione somewhat perplexed, but she decided to ignore it and add it onto her mental list of things she deemed 'Edward'. '_I know it's proven, but that's about it. You've read the same book I did about it._'

Ed frowned, scribbled two words down and chucked the paper to Hermione before focusing on the board for real, quickly jotting down everything on the board that he didn't already know about runes. Complicated transmutation circles often included runes, and now Ed was finally glad of his basic knowledge of them. He didn't want to have to stoop to copying someone else's notes.

Hermione got the message that the conversation was over, and breathed a silent sigh of relief before mentally slapping herself for not paying attention during class. She opened the note up, smiled slightly at the words of thanks and tucked the paper into her pocket. It wasn't like she had anywhere else to put it, anyway.

She couldn't help thinking, though, that Ed was an incredibly suspicious person. Sure, he gave off the 'you can trust me' vibe, but that didn't mean he was actually trustworthy. She'd seen many confusing and potentially suspicious things happen around Edward, and he'd also said quite a few peculiar things. For example, he knew how to use alchemy. Something that, even if known, wasn't supposed to work within Hogwarts walls. He had a metal arm, and if you looked closely, you could see faint scars all over his face, left arm and neck. He dressed bizarrely and had hair longer than her - not that she had anything against boys with long hair - and seemed to be rather close to Luna, of all people. He also seemed to personally know Dumbledore, had a punch strong enough to send someone into the hospital for a week and had the strangest accent she'd ever heard. Not to mention he was constantly disappearing to the 'library', and had been spotted more than once reading letters in the Owlery in the middle of the night, rather than at breakfast like everyone else. Add in the fact that he seemed to think going to the moon was ridiculous and you have a _very_ suspicious person on your hands.

She made yet another mental note to ask him about it at a convenient time before concentrating once more on the class she was currently in.

* * *

><p>"Are you disappearing <em>again<em>?" Harry asked disbelievingly as he spotted Ed halfway through slipping out of the door.

Ed froze in place, before backtracking a few steps and scratching the back of his head with a very Ed-like grin. "Yeah."

"Where to?" Harry asked, flopping further down into the sofa. They hadn't received any homework that day, so Harry was left with nothing to do but talk to people, and Ed happened to be his only companion in the common room at that moment.

"I don't know," Ed replied casually, a broad and slightly cheeky smile on his face.

Harry blinked. "You don't know?"

Ed grinned cheerfully. "Nope!" he said before skipping out of the room, clicking his tongue.

Harry stared after him with a look of complete bafflement. What had gotten into Ed today? He just seemed so... happy.

Ed, meanwhile, was in a _very_ good mood. He had absolutely no idea why, but he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just go with it. It wasn't often he felt as happy as this. Hell, he'd even helped a first year pick up her books when she'd dropped them in the corridor. Random acts of kindness were more his brother's thing. It was slightly disturbing for Ed. What if he was turning into his brother?

Ed shivered at the thought. _No offence, Al,_ he apologised mentally. But being nice and helpful and a pacifist just wasn't his thing. He liked being loud and obnoxious and punching people in the face just fine, thank you very much.

He only realised where he'd been subconsciously heading after he was standing in front of an increasingly familiar wall.

He snorted quietly at himself, wondering if this was the reason he was in a good mood, before tapping automail knuckles softly against the stone.

The stone rippled away, leaving a rather obtrusively decorated door standing in its wake. Anyone would have laughed at the face Ed pulled as he cast his eyes over the gaudy design before quickly opening the door and shutting it behind him.

He was greeted with a smile and a lukewarm cup of sugary tea. He accepted gratefully, having been too busy studying to eat lunch earlier. He collapsed onto the stripy sofa, sighing in relief as he sipped the tea and grinning in thanks at the dirty-blonde now sitting beside him.

"Why are you here?" Luna asked, though not offensively, tilting her head slightly to the side as she took a gulp of her own tea.

Ed rested his head against the back of the sofa, smiling up at the ceiling. "I guess I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" Luna questioned again, now staring dreamily at the boy beside her.

Ed's face scrunched up a little as he considered his options. "I thought I knew when I came here, but now I'm not so sure... I've just realised there are some other questions I could ask you instead, and I don't know which ones to ask you anymore."

Luna took this in, pursing her lips in thought as she stared out of the fake window at the lush rolling hills. "Maybe you could ask me all of them."

Ed hummed in response. "Perhaps. But it wouldn't make much sense if I did."

"Are there any questions that are in both groups? Like a Venn diagram."

Ed turned his head away from the ceiling to face Luna and blinked owlishly at her. "Well, I guess a couple are."

Luna smiled. "Then ask me those, and then you can decide."

Ed drew in a deep breath. "For starters, why is the decoration today so... _bright_?"

Luna giggled airily. "I'm in a good mood. That's why it's sunny outside," she said with a smile, staring out of the yellow-paned windows at the glaring sun and fluorescent clouds.

"Strange," Ed murmured. "Me too."

Luna turned back to face him, smiling broadly as if straining to hold back laughter. She didn't drop his gaze once she'd caught it, though, and soon enough the cups of tea sitting in their laps had been entirely forgotten.

They sat in that position beside each other, staring, hopelessly caught in each other's line of sight, for god knows how long. After what must've been at least two minutes, Ed's left hand twitched minutely, wanting suddenly to reach out and grab Luna's. Luna noticed, however, and blinked down at it, breaking the moment as if she has smashed a glass.

Neither said anything for the next five minutes. Luna seemed to have spaced out again, leaving Ed to wallow in his own thoughts.

_What the hell was that...?_ he wondered, staring down at the guilty hand clasping the pinkish-orange teacup. _It was like I was drowning... except it felt nice._

With that thought leaving him thoroughly confused, he decided to put it to the back of his mind and think about it while he had nothing better to do. And unfortunately, now was not one of those times.

"Luna..." Ed started, his voice cracking slightly as his throat had suddenly run dry.

Luna looked up slowly, a small, dreamy smile cracking her nonchalant mask. "Ed?"

"... The questions."

Luna nodded. "Yes."

Ed gave her an odd look. "I haven't even asked you yet."

Luna smiled and said, "I know. I was just guessing."

Ed couldn't resist the small smile that seemed to want to crawl onto his face.

"What's the first question?" she asked dreamily.

Ed drew in a deep breath, thinking over which of his numerous questions would be best asked first. He decided that business should come before curiosity, however, and so asked, "What do you know about time travel?"

Luna hummed as she thought up a response. "It's possible. There's a spell for it, though no one's ever managed to cast it properly before."

Now _that_ was new information.

"Do you know the spell?"

Luna shook her head, sighing. "No. But my mother did."

Ed wasn't quite sure what to say to that, especially since Luna's strange smile has vanished somewhere. For some reason, that just seemed to twist a knot in his gut, and he suddenly didn't want to talk about it anymore, almost as if he was talking about his own mother. "What about travelling between worlds?"

"It's possible, definitely... Apparently the Ministry sent some people over to another world a few months ago, though they haven't come back yet."

"Really?" Ed asked, genuinely interested. Heck, he might've met these people! "Do you know any of their names?"

"No, but I heard they were supposed to be going undercover in the military."

_The military?_ Ed screamed internally, before deciding there was a limit to how much of this he could take. "You... don't know anything else about space travel?"

Luna shook her head distantly, staring thoughtfully at the fire roaring in the chequered fireplace that had suddenly appeared. "Not much, I suppose... but it was something about the speed of light."

Ed nodded. That was how he'd got here. He had just been wondering if there was a... _safer_ method of transportation than shooting through the sky faster than the speed of light. "I see. That's a shame."

Luna sighed lightly, before turning back to Ed with a smile on her pale face. "Are there any other questions, Ed?"

Ed bit his lip. He knew Luna could be trusted, and no one would believe her even if she did spill something, but there was still something nagging at him... Perhaps because the only person he'd ever trusted wholly was his brother, and Luna certainly wasn't his brother. Still, he readied his breath and glanced upwards, hoping that if there really was a heaven, it wouldn't give him a hard time about this. Or even worse, somehow tell Mustang he was considering telling Luna military secrets. "Luna..." he started slowly.

"Mm?"

He took a breath, before blurting quickly, "Are we friends?"

Luna looked at him as if she'd never seen a teenage boy before. "If you want us to be. I don't mind," she said lightly, as if it wasn't making Ed's heart hammer in his chest.

Ed nodded slightly. "Then we're friends."

Luna smiled. "I've never had a friend before."

Ed looked at her in mild surprise, before he smiled to himself. He didn't have many friends apart from Al and Winry, either. He could relate. "Then I can trust you, right?"

Luna nodded enthusiastically. "Of course. Friends don't give each other's secrets away."

Well that erased the possibility of Luna telling someone.

Ed took a breath, nodding to himself.

"Is it about the letter?" she asked curiously.

Ed let out the breath in a slightly nervous laugh. "Yeah. It's about the letter."

* * *

><p><strong>Dun dun dun~ Ed's gonna tell her *evil nya face* But how much~? <strong>

**ED/LUNA FLUFF. OH YESH. FINALLY.**

**Doesn't this quick (though deadline-missing) update deserve a nice, cookie-filled review~? ;D**


	10. Nine: Valentine's Day

**In apology for leaving you so long without a chapter, I bring you 5200 words - a good 2000 more words than normal and 12 full pages on Word xD I hope you enjoy them!**

**(And sorry that I couldn't post this closer to Valentine's Day in rl xD;;)**

**Disclaimer~**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine - Valentine's Day<strong>

"Valentine's _what_?" Ed echoed with an incredulous look on his face.

Ron gaped at him. "You're telling me you've never heard of Valentine's Day? It's a major event of the year!"

Ed raised an eyebrow. "No, I haven't. What happens on Valentine's Day?"

Ron shook his head in disbelief, before launching into a full-blown explanation. "Girls give the boys they like presents or love letters. The boys give presents too sometimes, but only if they're sappy wimps."

"So basically it's a confession day?" Ed asked disinterestedly. The book he'd found an hour ago, '_The Passage of Time'_, was proving to be very informative, and he deemed it far more important than some fancy-shmancy celebration.

"I guess so," Ron said with a grin, before it faded into a grimace. "I didn't get anything last year. Or the year before."

"Or the year before that," Harry cut in helpfully.

Ron scowled at him. "Shut up, Harry."

Ed, ignoring the banter, asked, "Why wasn't anyone talking about this before today? If it's such a big occasion and all."

"Because all the girls talk about it between themselves, talking about who they're gonna give presents to and stuff. Boys don't talk about it much."

"Right," Ed said distantly as he pressed yet another neon page marker onto the edge of the page, this time with a black cross on it.

"Hey," Ron said, as if offended, "are you even listening?"

"Lovey-dovey celebration. Got it."

Ron huffed in annoyance, stomping back to his homework beckoning him on the table. "None of the girls will give you presents if you act like that."

Ed squinted at some hand-written notes in the margin and said, without looking up, "Does it look like I give a shit?"

Harry grinned as Ron's face flushed - out of annoyance or embarrassment, Ed couldn't tell. But it still tugged an amused smirk out of him all the same.

"Hurry up, you three, or we're all going to be late for breakfast!" Hermione's chirpy voice called over from the doorway as she held it open for them.

"Yeah, yeah," the three chorused as they dragged themselves towards the Great Hall.

* * *

><p>"... What the <em>fuck<em> is this?" Ed deadpanned as he arrived to his usual spot at the Gryffindor table.

Ron gaped almost longingly at Ed's table, while Harry stared, completely awe-struck, at the sight in front of them.

"Those, I believe," Hermione said sensibly as she sat down opposite the towering pile, "are Valentine's presents."

The pile of letters, chocolate, flowers and various magical goods reached Ed's chin as he stood dumbly in front of it. Apparently, he'd been far more popular than he'd thought. "This is... all for me?"

Hermione shrugged, pulling out _Hogwarts, a History _from her bag. "I don't know. Why don't you check?" she said disinterestedly.

Ed blinked himself out of his stupor, reaching forward to grab a letter from the top of the rather unstable-looking stack. He just had enough time to glance at the addressee - him, of course - before the thing opened its mouth (if that's what it could be called) and began to sing some sort of sappy love song to him. Ed barely retrained a screech, immediately dropping the offending paper as if it had burned him. He even checked his fingertips to check. _Nope, still there._

Luckily for him, the singing letter had ceased its song as soon as he let go of it. Ed prodded it with his boot, checking if he could pick it up with something else to throw it in the fire with.

"They only sing when the person they're intended for is holding them," Hermione said, rolling her eyes in exasperation as if it was common knowledge. Then her eyes flicked up from the book for a moment, a vaguely interested expression on her face. "Hey, are you going to read that letter? Or can I practice a high-level flame spell on it?"

Ed shrugged, stepping back. "Feel free."

Hermione smiled, before pulling her wand out of her robe and doing some complicated-looking swishes with it. The poor letter immediately burst into green flames before the ash dissipated entirely, leaving only a steadily smoking ring of black on the charred floorboards.

Ed's eyes lit up as the circle reminded him of something he'd been meaning to do for a good few months but hadn't got round to trying out yet.

With a progressively evil grin, alerting Harry and Ron into a state of wariness, he separated the gifts into four piles - ordinary letters, edible items, flowers and everything else. He carefully pushed the pile in front of Ron, who was now sitting next to him happily eating breakfast. Ron's eyes widened in delight. "Can I have them?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah. I don't have much of a sweet tooth."

Ron grinned broadly. "Thanks, mate!" He quickly abandoned the balanced breakfast on his plate, somehow managing to vanish it without setting something on fire, and replaced it with as many chocolate as he could fit on the small silver platter.

Ed then offered the magical items to Harry and Hermione, who both refused them. With some annoyance, he persuaded Hermione to conjure him up a large square of cardboard - he despised not being able to use alchemy in public - and scrawled on it, 'FREE, TAKE WHAT YOU LIKE'. He leant the cardboard up against a nearby wall of the Great Hall, ignoring the blatant stares he was receiving, and began to pile the mysterious objects up on the ground underneath the makeshift sign.

Satisfied with his handiwork, he strolled back to his seat, vaulting over the table to reach his seat on the opposite side.

Ron emitted a high-pitched squeak as one of Ed's legs flew over his chocolate breakfast, hurriedly catching a few as Ed's boot accidentally kicked them off the top of the enormous pile.

Ed settled back down onto the bench and continued to stack endless amounts of food on his plate as if he hadn't just done something rather stare-worthy in the middle of a crowded breakfast hall. He glanced around, noticing the odd looks he was on the receiving end of, and questioned around a mouthful of red something that made him look rather like a vampire, "What?"

Harry smiled in disbelief, shaking his head and returning his attention to his food. He wasn't sure if he'd ever understand this boy.

"What are you going to do with the letters and flowers?" Ron asked, eyeing the two considerably smaller piles now surrounding Ed and his cherished breakfast.

Ed let a devilish smirk slip onto his face, though he said nothing, further scaring Ron to the point where he physically shuffled down the bench a few inches, much to Harry and Ed's amusement.

* * *

><p>"<em>Yikes!<em>" the poor Gryffindor girl screeched as she was greeted by a burning mass of blue flames.

The flames were immediately extinguished in a puff of foul-smelling smoke. "Sorry, didn't realise you were there," Ed said blandly, not looking up from the next envelope he was placing on the fireproof mat.

The girl opened and closed her mouth a few times, deemed speechless by the spontaneously combusting letters and the five vases stuffed full of furiously blooming flowers now decorating the mantelpiece. She eyed what must've been the leftover flowers that hadn't been able to fit into a vase, still tied together in a pretty bouquet carelessly cast onto the floor. "I-is that a new spell?"

Ed's mouth twisted into a smirk, as if grinning at a private joke. "I suppose."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll leave you to it," she spurted quickly, before practically flying up the staircase to the girls' dormitories, too fast to notice the toothy grin on Ed's face as his clapped his hands again, opened his palms to the letters and began to laugh manically as they erupted into blue flame yet again. He'd only managed to set the wooden desk underneath them alight seven times before he'd got the hang of it - even now, a good thirty-or-so letters later, he was still missing, making mistakes, misjudging distances and the amount of flames he'd need - but he was getting there.

Only once he'd begun to lose count of the letters he'd exploded did he grudgingly begin to respect the precision and accuracy in the Bastard Colonel's flame alchemy.

"Is that your alchemy again?"

The sudden voice made Ed flinch, sending the flames past the letters and straight into the roaring fireplace, which responded by sparking angrily at him. Ed snapped his head around from his place on the red sofa. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

Hermione shot him a disapproving frown as she seated herself beside him and opened a four-inch-thick tome so dusty Ed was forced to shield his nose with an automail palm. "You should be more aware of your surroundings when you're concentrating. That way you won't mess up if something comes up, and it won't interrupt your concentration."

Ed scowled. The last thing he needed was someone _three years younger than him_ giving him alchemy advice. He would have said so to her face if a sensible, Al-like part of him didn't agree with her. It was small, granted, but it was stubborn enough to clamp Ed's mouth shut as he turned back to his flame alchemy with a sullen face.

He'd barely clapped his hands when there was yet another interruption - this one far less knowledgeable. "Blimey, that's a lot of flowers!"

Ed rolled his golden eyes in exasperation. "Yes, Ron, well done. You officially have the power of sight," he remarked sarcastically.

Ron stuck his tongue out at Ed as he wormed into his line of vision. "They're all yours, right?"

Ed nodded, grimacing. "Unfortunately."

Ron's eyes bulged, a look of classic disbelief etched into his face so dramatically Ed wondered if it would be permanent. "_Unfortunately_? Ed, any boy would _kill_ to get that much stuff from girls."

Ed shrugged. "I'm not any boy."

Ron snorted. "That's obvious." He narrowed his eyes before leaning closer from his place on a nearby armchair. "The only reason a boy wouldn't want so many presents is if he already has his eye on someone..." Ron trailed off, letting the unsubtle hint smack Ed in the face, leaving a bright red smear on his cheeks.

Ed's head swirled up to face Ron, his mouth clamped shut into an outraged line and his gold orbs round and shocked, before he attempted to turn his attention back to the alchemy that was now failing miserably under his distracted control. "I-I don't..."

Even Hermione, who thought Ron's obsession over girls was immature and idiotic, raised a disbelieving eyebrow in Ed's direction before she returned to the precious written word. Ron might be a moron, but if there was one thing he was skilled at it was being able to tell who liked who.

"Uh-huh. 'Course not."

Ed was growing more flustered by the minute. "I-I don't like any girl!"

"So you're gay. Not surprising, really, with that hair-"

"_No_!"

Ron grinned. "Then there _must_ be someone. There are _millions_ of girls in this school." At Hermione's exasperated frown in his direction, Ron corrected, "Okay, thousands. But surely at least one of them caught your eye. I mean, you could have practically _any_ of them with that face, mate."

If it was possible, Ed grew an even brighter shade of beetroot red. "There isn't. Really," he mumbled, not making eye contact.

Ron's grin grew feral, like a cat who had the cream right where he wanted it. "And that's why you deliberately left a bunch of flowers out of the vases? Because you _weren't_ planning to give them to anybody?"

Ed made an odd choked noise as the purple letter currently burning began to fizz, shooting out rainbow sparks like an over-energetic sparkler.

Thankfully, before Ed could be subjected to any more grilling, his saviour appeared. "What's going on?"

"Hey, Harry." Ron waved him over. "We were just asking Ed who he could like so much that he's burning all his love letters without even reading them."

Harry gave Ron a 'don't-you-have-anything-better-to-do' look before tapping Ed lightly on his left shoulder. "Come on, or you'll be late for Arithmancy."

Ed was eternally grateful for the kind occurrence of class, and practically shot out of the common room like a rocket, Harry and co. in tow.

* * *

><p>"Class." Professor Vector clapped twice, signalling for the class to be quiet. "Get out your textbooks and turn to page seventy-two. Today, we are going to be studying the effect of arithmetical confusion when working with range of different..."<p>

Ed had just begun to tune out the teacher's ramblings, instead sapping knowledge directly from the book in front of him, when a red sack rather like the ones he'd used to feed the thestrals landed on his book, blocking the second half of the sentence he was currently reading. He blinked, turning to his left and coming face-to-face with Luna's inquisitive azure eyes. He pointed at the pouch and cocked his head slightly to the side, his brows knitted in confusion.

Luna smiled secretively, as if partaking in some private joke, before nodding towards the bag and mouthing, "Open it."

Ed shot her a wary look before carefully tugging the drawstrings and squinting at the shimmering piece of paper tucked inside. He pulled it out, hissing when a blindingly shiny powder spilt onto his textbook. He quickly scooped it back in, before unfolding the note, also covered in a film of the strange substance. It read, in an uneven, swirly hand, 'To stop the shrumps reading your mind.'

Ed shot the paper a deadpan stare before his lips twisted into an amused, if not slightly exasperated, smirk of defeat. He turned to face Luna in the next desk over, who was still gazing at him expectantly. He shot her a small smile and mouthed back, "Thank you."

Her own smile broadened in response, and she quickly turned back to her textbook, attempting to catch up with the lost minutes of the lesson.

Ed did the same, though the multitude of thoughts and unvoiced questioned swirling around and around in his head made it rather impossible to concentrate. He couldn't help wondering whether Luna had deliberately waited until today - this special day - to give him the powder, or whether Luna had just happened to remember to present it to him today. It would be just the sort of thing Luna would do... However, Ed was surprised and a little confused to find a small burst of colourful _something_ in his chest and smiled giddily to himself when he considered the option that perhaps the date and the gift wasn't a coincidence.

* * *

><p>"What's your next class?" Ron asked to no one in particular as the four - Ed, Harry, Hermione and he - wandered down the corridor after lunch.<p>

Harry rolled his eyes. "Care of Magical Creatures, with you."

"Ancient Runes," Hermione answered, before a bright smile lit up her face. "We're finally putting that new set of runes we memorised into practise today."

Ron and Harry shared a hopeless look before glancing at Ed. "What about you?" Harry asked.

Ed blinked, before turning to look at the two. "Huh?" he asked intelligently.

Ron shot him an odd look. "What's your next class?"

"Oh, it's-" he began automatically, before Ed cut himself off. A smirk morphed his previously thoughtful expression into one of joy. "I have the afternoon free."

Ron's eyes widened and he whined, "Lucky! How come?"

"Oh, Dumbledore said something about 'having more time to...'" he realised he couldn't mention his research, so he said, "'... conduct my own research.'"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "'Your own research'?"

Ed nodded. "I didn't come here just to take classes, you know," he answered mysteriously before spotting a large tree with a rather nice-looking patch of shade underneath it a long way away form the building. "Ooh, gotta go. Bye!" He sprinted off before anyone could reply, leaving three confused magicians in his wake.

* * *

><p>Ed collapsed under the large tree - upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a weeping willow - with a large sigh of relief. He was finally way from prying eyes, somewhere where he was alone - somewhere he could be <em>himself<em>. He could be Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, Hero of the People, because there was no one around to question him and beg for answers.

_Talking about begging for answers_, Ed thought gruffly, _I haven't been doing that much research lately, and I think Mustang's getting impatient._ With a resounding sigh, he rummaged around in his shoulder bag dumped gracelessly beside him and tugged free a battered book entangled in string. He checked the title to make sure he hadn't pulled out a textbook - '_The Art of Time Travel_' - and opened it on the first page.

He skimmed the first few pages, eyes automatically ignoring the author's seemingly endless blather about writing a book to 'educate the common wizard'. _Come on, where's the good stuff?_

He finally began to see more useful information appear more frequently, and he slowed his reading down to a normal pace. His mind, so accustomed to research, automatically made a concise list of potentially useful facts in his head as he read. _Usually with time turners - multiple tests - three centuries of work - successful spell but-_

Ed blinked, re-reading the sentence more carefully. _Sometime last century a man who would only give his name as Van Hohenheim _- Ed resisted the urge to scream and throw the book in a burning ditch somewhere near the North Pole, wherever that was - _successfully created a spell to travel through time, though he was never seen again after the experiment and is assumed to have died in the attempt._

Ed screwed his face up. His father - the bastard - hadn't died, that was for sure; otherwise Ed wouldn't be alive reading this paragraph today. However, it seemed like it had been a failed experiment, sending Hohenheim somewhere else in time, leaving him unable to return to the time he had performed the spell. The spell worked, but it was unable to be controlled and was therefore practically useless.

Ed sighed, before skipping ahead a few paragraphs looking for something more relevant and less annoying. _Why was Hohenheim even in this world anyway?_

He sat underneath the tree for another twenty minutes scanning page after page, littering his brain with worthless notes on failed attempt after failed attempt at creating a spell to harness the fabric of time.

His eyes brightened with an unnatural interest, however, when he came upon the paragraph he was looking for, somewhere about eighty pages in. He whispered it aloud, as if afraid he was misreading the glittering gem of information. "'_Roughly_ _thirty years ago, a project was launched named 'Project SpaceTime'. It looked into possible ways to travel through time, as well as through the spatial rift into different worlds. Though their studies on space travel were inconclusive, their studies on time travel revealed that it is physically impossible to create a spell to travel through time without possessing a time turner. The time turner has a complex assortment of atomic bonds within it, lending a scientific help to the magic it uses to transport individuals around the world, and those bonds, fused with magic, cannot be reproduced by any spell._'"

Ed sat, frozen, underneath the willow tree until he began to feel a burning in his hest, and he realised he'd been holding his breath. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he felt his senses come back to him, and he could feel the beautiful grin melt onto his face in euphoria. There was nothing he liked better than solving a difficult puzzle with a black-and-white, uncomplicated answer. That, he supposed, was the reason he loved Maths.

He threw his arms up above his head, relishing the moment when he could celebrate with no one around, and he yelled something loud and incoherent - it didn't matter what, so long as it released the bubbles of energy and ecstasy now fizzing in the core of his very being like a soda can after it's been shaken. He jumped to his feet and whirled around, not caring when he felt so dizzy he couldn't stand up anymore and collapsed to the ground, or when his stomach felt so riled up he swore he was going to throw up. He simply lay in the dappled light, feeling the cool, damp grass beneath his cheek and bare arm and the sliver of stomach showing under his vest that he'd untucked in the last of the summer warmth earlier that morning.

"Yay," he muttered to himself, before snickering. "That bastard Colonel's gonna be so surprised when he finds out I've completed half my mission so soon." He smirked into the grass, breathing in its earthy scent for another minute before he reluctantly dragged himself to all fours. _He isn't, however, if I don't actually tell him._

Ed crawled over to his leather shoulder bag, lying open against the base of the trunk etched with aged whorls. He scrabbled around inside it, looking for some of the paper he'd shoved in there this morning and the fountain pen he'd brought with him - he smirked when he remembered it was actually the Colonel's and he'd pinched it off his desk a few months ago - grinning to himself when said items were found. He twisted around, slouching with his back against the trunk, uncapped the pen and began to write.

It didn't take long to write the report - he was just summarising the long-winded explanation in the book, after all. He tacked a cheeky 'So there, bastard' on the end, before signing the initials 'FMA' and capped the pen with the cap that he held between his teeth. He tucked the scrap of horribly old-fashioned parchment away in his bag, along with his superior's favourite pen, before sighing in gleeful contentment as, for the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to sit and close his eyes and just _be_.

* * *

><p>He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been asleep, but the sun was still fairly high in the sky - though that said nothing in September - his neck was painfully stiff and his left arm had cramped beside him. He closed half-lidded eyes against the blaring sunlight and shifted to sit up straighter against the tree, grunting as his automail felt far heavier than normal. He reluctantly opened one eye, and the sight that greeted him caused the other eye to join it as he stared, frozen in shock, at the girl leaning against his right shoulder as if it was a fluffy pillow.<p>

Ed couldn't get his thoughts straight - they zoomed around in his head in the place where his brain should be, colliding and merging and reproducing before he could even hope to grasp what they were in the first place. There were only three things Ed could manage to scold his head into working out: '_I fell asleep under a willow tree_', '_Surely my automail isn't that comfortable_' and '_Luna's fallen asleep on my shoulder_'.

He decided that the first two thoughts weren't of much importance, and instead focused on the third. "Luna?" he whispered hesitantly, not sure whether waking her up was a good idea.

"Hello."

Ed stifled a gasp as Luna opened one eye, blinking up at him, and smiled briefly before shutting it again. "Y-you're awake?"

She giggled, her eyelids still gently closed, "I was the entire time."

Ed blinked at that, his brain finally beginning to whir again. "How long have you been here?"

"Not long. Long enough to wonder whether you'd accidentally drunk a sleeping potion."

Ed grinned sheepishly. "What time is it?"

"After class," Luna replied dreamily. "Harry said you'd run over here just after lunch. You've spent the whole afternoon here."

"Mm." Ed nodded minutely, though Luna couldn't see it. "How were lessons?"

Luna made a noncommittal humming noise before muttering airily, "Normal, I suppose. Though I was called out in the middle of Potions to help coach a first year onto a broomstick. Apparently he'd had a bad experience with them in the past and refused to touch one." She giggled dreamily. "Professor Snape's face was very funny."

Ed couldn't resist the smirk that wormed its way onto his face. "I bet it was. Damn, I wish I could've been there." He paused a moment in consideration before asking, "Why did they choose you?"

"Hm?"

Ed shifted so his legs were bent, his knees tucked under his chin. "Why did they choose you, specifically, to help to kid out with his broomstick?"

Luna smiled. "They said it was because I was good at flying. And because I'm not as scary as some other fifth years."

Ed chuckled lowly, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. "Imagine them sending that son of a bitch Malfoy."

Luna giggled lightly. "I think that would have made it worse."

"You're probably right."

Speech ceased for a few minutes as both parties relished the lull of activity. A sunny afternoon on the grass could do that to you, as Ed had experienced many times in his early years.

Ed's eyelids had just begun to droop when a thought suddenly occurred to him, sending his lurching forward, temporarily forgetting the girl leaning on his shoulder. "Shit!"

Luna pushed herself up from where she'd fallen behind Ed and rubbed at her eyes dazedly while she asked, rather calmly, "What?"

Ed began to rummage frantically through his bag, pulling out every item that looked vaguely like a scrap of yellowed paper. He mumbled irritable half-formed sentences to Luna as he did so. "Stupid - Why didn't I do it earlier? - Shit, stupid letter - Stupid fucking Mustang - Bloody 'do it by tomorrow' - Gah, where is it?" He fumbled around with a piece of paper that turned out to be his earlier conversation with Hermione, screwing his face up in annoyance when he chucked it back into the seemingly endless bag.

"What are you looking for?" Luna asked, distantly calm in stark contrast to Ed and his short-tempered search.

"Letter," he mumbled absently, before tearing out said piece of parchment and holding up with a triumphant, "Ha!"

Luna tilted her head to the side in slight confusion. "A letter?"

Ed nodded. "I just remembered that I have to send it today - he expects a letter every day, and I haven't sent him one in a couple of days, so he'll get really mad if he doesn't get this today."

Luna nodded. "I can show you where the Owlery is if you'd like. Since you always seem to be lost somewhere when we meet."

Ed chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with a flesh hand as he replied gratefully, "Thanks. Much appreciated. I hate those damn corridors so much."

Luna giggled, before beginning to rise to her feet. She felt a tug on her robe, however, and looked down at a still-sitting Ed with a hint of confusion.

"We'll go in a minute. I don't think I can be bothered to get up right now."

Luna blinked down at him owlishly for a moment, before smiling and settling back down beside him.

Ed let his head fall back, grunting as it hit the solid trunk behind him.

Luna gazed at him for a moment, as if searching for answers to a question simply by reading his expression. Ed, noticing her eyes on him, lazily rolled his head to the side and murmured softly, "What?"

"I was just wondering who the letters were for."

Ed's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"You've been writing lots of letters lately. You're often writing them at breakfast and lunch, and you were writing one during DADA the other day, and the one a moment ago..."

Ed smiled slightly. "They're for different people. Some are for my brother and his... _fiancée-_" he hesitated slightly on the word, unable to imagine Winry as something as posh-sounding as a 'fiancée', "-and some are for my..." Ed stopped. How much could he tell her?

"Your what?"

_Screw it_. "My boss."

Luna raised her eyebrows, though more in interest than surprise. "Why would your boss want lots of letters?"

"'Cause when I came here, he wanted me to do a little research. The library back home isn't very big, see, and Hogwarts' is. So I'm researching stuff for him," he explained, before adding, "Lazy bastard," under his breath.

Luna nodded. "Is that why you've been reading about time travel a lot?"

Ed smirked. "Yeah."

"What's he like?" Luna asked, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"My boss?"

Luna nodded.

Ed sighed irritably, slouching further back against the tree and extending his legs as a scowl bloomed on his young face. "He's a bastard. He's greedy and makes everyone do everything for him, and he always makes me do stupid stuff when I could be doing something more productive, and he never listens and he makes fun of me and I hate him."

Luna giggled.

He turned his head to face her, scowl still in place as he snapped, "What?"

That only served to increase Luna's giggles, until she fell sideways in a fit of laughter onto Ed's almost horizontal chest, her body still shaking in dreamy mirth.

Ed suddenly became very grateful that she couldn't see his face from that angle, as something suspiciously warm flooded his face, and Ed felt his cheeks grow pink. "I-it's not _that_ funny..."

Luna nodded, and only after the laughter had died down into a broad smile did she reply. "You... like him more than you say, I think."

Ed's eyes grew wide, and would have crossed his arms if Luna wasn't currently in the way. "How did you reach _that_ conclusion?"  
>Ed couldn't clearly see Luna's face, but he saw her cheek move from behind in what he assumed must be a smile. "Have you heard of Shakespeare, Ed? 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'"<p>

"I'm not a lady!"

Luna giggled. "You're missing the point."

Ed let out a gruff sigh, grumbling something about not liking Mustang. He may not have heard of this 'Shakespeare' person, but he had an idea of what the quote meant. And it _definitely_ wasn't true. Even though Mustang had practically raised him since he was twelve and had achieved a level of skill in alchemy that Ed was only beginning to grasp the idea of, he still had _absolutely no_ respect for the man. _None at all_. And the next time Ed saw the man, he'd make sure Mustang knew it.

* * *

><p>On the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, a prying pair of stone-grey eyes chuckled at the happy sight underneath the willow tree before retreating back towards the awaiting castle.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>O.o Dun dun duuuuuuun!<strong>


	11. Ten: Don't Mess With Elric

**So I guess I updated. Maybe.**

**OKAY GUISE PLEASE DON'T KILL ME. I know I haven't updated since last April (16 months, ouch) but here is another chapter!**

**You can expect regular updates from this story from now on.**

**Disclaimer~**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten - Don't Mess With Elric<strong>

* * *

><p>"Mmph!"<p>

The trio looked over in alarm as Ed began to violently cough up his pumpkin juice, gaping wide-eyed at the roll of paper he clutched in his flesh hand.

"Uh... Are you all right?" Harry asked cautiously.

Ed could be seen nodding dismissively as his golden eyes once again skimmed the parchment currently held in shaking fingers.

"What's it say?" Ron inquired after a moment's silence.

Harry swore he could see a blush on the boy's face, though that might've just been the temperature of the Great Hall.

Ed shook his head. "Nothing much," he mumbled, dipping his head to inspect the letter further.

Hermione exchanged a disbelieving look with Harry from across the table, though neither spoke anything of it.

"Do any of you have a pen?" Ed asked suddenly.

"Uh..." Harry rummaged around in his pocket. "Here."

Ed took the proffered quill with a grimace, though didn't object to the magical item. He quickly shoved his breakfast plate out of the way to make room for the letter and flipped the paper over as he began to write in his trademark illegible scrawl.

_Stupid bastard_, he thought. _What right does he have to ask me if I got a Valentine? He doesn't even know what Valentine's Day is. Why should it matter to him?_

_Bastard,_

_Why is it any of your business? Though I bet if you were here you'd get less chocolate than I did. 'Cause I got loads. Ha._

_No new info on the stupid mission._

Ed signed his name with a flourish, folding the paper back up and proceeding to wave it about in the air for his owl to collect. Luckily, his owl was just as lazy as the man who assigned it to him, and it was still in the room. It swooped down slightly less than gracefully and was out of the hall in a few minutes.

Just as Ed had finally started his breakfast, a lanky Ravenclaw girl approached him. "U-um..."

Ed sighed irritably, before turning to her and snapping, "What?"

The girl recoiled from the offensive tone, but wasn't discouraged. "T-there's a rumour going around..."

Ed rolled his eyes.

"... That you and L-Luna Lovegood are dating, and I was just w-wondering if-"

"No," Ed cut in, surprisingly calm, and turned back to his long-awaited food. "We're not."

There was a brief pause, before: "Oh."

She shuffled away, and Ed had to give her some credit. I mean, not many people here were brave enough to approach him and ask him a question like that.

"You're..." Ron murmured after a few minutes, "really not going out?"

Ed shook his head. "We're just friends."

Hermione subtly raised her eyebrows behind a thick burgundy tome layered with dust.

However, Ed's feline eyes were sharp and well-trained from years in the military, and he immediately honed in on her like a predator to its prey. "What?" he spat at her, quite a lot more aggressively than he'd intended. He flushed slightly in embarrassment when he realised this, though ignored it.

"Nothing," the bushy-haired girl protested, "I didn't say anything."

Ed grunted, not wishing to either carry on the discussion or apologise for his unreasonably foul mood. He decided it was becoming increasingly difficult to be sociable right about now, and so he proceeded to stomp off to the common room for a little down-time before he had to face the dreaded detention with Umbridge.

* * *

><p>"Ow... Jesus, that woman is fucking <em>insane<em>," Ed grumbled to himself as he wandered down the deserted corridors rubbing his left hand protectively. "She even made me write with my left hand..." He glared around him at the paintings, as if daring them to object to his _obviously right_ opinion of the world. "She should be fired and... Hm, maybe I should mention this to that bastard Colonel in my next report. Perhaps he could spare a soldier or two to give her a taste of her own medicine..." Ed grinned evilly, the plan forming in his mind temporarily distracting him from the cuts slowly scabbing over on his hand.

"Hey there, shorty."

Ed's blood was boiling even before he spotted the offensively blond head a few metres away.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Ed growled. Before Malfoy's malicious reply had a chance to slither off his forked tongue, Ed snarled, "I warn you, if you're here to piss me off, now is _not_ a good time, so be prepared for another hospital stay, Malfoy."

"Ooh," he mocked in reply, smirking. "I'm so scared."

Ed continued walking, gritting his teeth in irritation.

"How are your detentions going, Elric? Still managing to piss off everyone you meet?"

There was no reply from the young alchemist. His boots fell faster on the concrete.

"You know, I have yet to find a single decent person who actually likes you. Granger's a nerd, Weasley's an idiot, Potter's a loner and Loony Lovegood is just plain crazy. You know, I bet even your own parents hated y-"

Ed would later claim that his automail simply malfunctioned when it came into forceful contact with Malfoy's jaw.

"Listen, you motherfucking bastard," Ed snarled as he shoved Malfoy's limp form against the stone wall. "I don't care what the _fuck_ you have to say about anything about my fucking life. Luna is my business, my friends are my business and my parents are _my fucking business._ Now I'd appreciate it if you'd _stay the fuck out of my life and stop spreading rumours or I'll make sure you won't have a tongue to spread them._"

Ed let go of the Slytherin's crumpled collar, dropping the petrified teen on the floor without a care and strode off furiously before anyone had a chance to spot him at the scene of the crime.

* * *

><p>There was a loud eruption of laughter from ahead of the blonde, causing him to glance up irritably, brows still furrowed in murderous fury from the earlier Malfoy incident. He was a little surprised to see the disruptive noise had originated within his own friends - Harry, Ron, Hermione and... Wait, who was that?<p>

Sharp eyes narrowed in curiosity, Ed's strides grew longer in an attempt to catch up with the ambling teens. Upon closer inspection, the fouth member of the party appeared to be female, judging from the long, shimmering fiery hair spilling down her back (_although_, Ed added as a mental afterthought, _her hair is shorter than mine, so..._). She was also rather short, so perhaps she was a little younger, too.

"Hey Ed, where were you during lunch?" Ron asked through a mouthful of toast as he caught sight of the alchemist.

All four students halted and turned, though they seemed to have now gotten pretty used to Ed's frequent and mysterious disappearances and sudden reappearances at the oddest times.

Ed shrugged, muttering coarsely, "Detention with that fucker Umbridge."

Ron snorted. "Did you have fun?"

The glare Ron received in reponse almost sent him to the hospital ward, and Harry, alarmed, quickly reached out to steady the redhead as he swayed on his feet.

The five continued down the corridor, though there was now a heavy tint to the atmosphere.

Ed had never much liked awkward silences.

"Who's she?" he asked brusquely, gesturing an automail thumb at the somewhat startled girl.

"Oh, sorry, it seems we forgot to introduce you two," Hermione replied, somewhat thoughtful. "Ed, this is Ginny Weasley. Ginny, this is Edward Elric, the new transfer student."

Ed's head snapped around to face her. "Weasley? Isn't that-"

Ginny spoke up for the first time, her voice surprisingly smooth and clarion. "I'm Ron's younger sister." She added a cute giggle at the end for effect. "It's nice to finally meet you; Ron's told me an awful lot about you."

Ed raised an amused eyebrow at the taller boy, who shrunk bashfully away from the conversation, clearly highly embarrassed. "H-hey, Ginny-"

The young girl's laugh was shrill and bell-like, and quite contagious. Before they knew it, the entire group's giggles and chuckles were reverberating off the high, ornamented ceilings behind them as they breezed down the cold, stone corridor towards Potions.

* * *

><p>"Today, class, you will be making Polyjuice Potion," Snape drawled from behind his desk. "I assume you all have the brains to know how this works by now - you collect the ingredients from the front, the textbooks from the back and work <em>silently<em> and _on your own_. Are we clear?"

There was a reluctant murmur of "Yes, sir," around the intimidating dungeon and with an affirming nod from the black-haired wizard, all students began scrambling for the best quality ingredients.

Ed was somehow immune to it, however, and settled for everyone's leftovers after it had quietened down.

He relaxed at the back of the classroom for a few minutes, grinning at the amusing arguments between students about how the potions were supposed to look and whether their potions were smelling toxic or not.

As he strolled lazily towards the front to gather ingredients, another porcelain hand had reached out for the same pouch of herbs. Both owners of the hands looked up simultaneously, and Ed suddenly found himself once again face-to-face with his arch nemesis.

"Hey, Draco, how're you doing?" he asked conversationally, relishing the way the boy turned sheet white at the sight of him. When there didn't look like there was going to be an answer anytime soon, he grinned maliciously and murmured in a friendly tone, "How about you let me have these ingredients, huh? You can go ask the Snape-meister over there for some more."

Ed's glare was met - and possibly beaten - by the sheer hatred and putrid fury in those venomous steel-blue eyes, but after a brief pause, Draco (rather uncharacteristically) backed down.

He was followed by a multitude of awed eyes as he stalked towards his favourite teacher.

Particularly curious as to how he managed such a feat were Harry, Ron and Hermione; but the most suspicious of all was undoubtedly Snape himself.

* * *

><p>"Elric," Snape spat venomously at the short alchemist. "You're late <em>yet again<em> for your detention."

Ed simply shrugged in response; he really didn't care what this infuriating idiot had to say. _Geez, at least I'm actually turning up._

"Sit."

Ed turned to face the greasy-haired man in surprise. His back straightened automatically at the commanding tone of voice and his mismatched arms fell stiffly by his sides. Snape arched a thick black eyebrow at the unconscious movement, though thankfully didn't pursue it.

"I said sit _down_, Elric." Snape gestured impatiently at the battered wooden chair hastily pulled up in front of the worn desk.

Ed complied willingly enough; after all, talking to the bastard couldn't be half as bad as some of the things he'd been made to do in these detentions. "What?"

Snape looked dangerously like he was about to throttle Ed on the spot for his outrageously _uncouth_ attitude, but restrained himself as he snarled mutely at the teen, "Today, I will be gracious and will not force you to do any unpleasant activities."

Ed's eyes narrowed. _Surely_ it couldn't be as easy as that?

"However..." Snape drawled, and Ed gritted his teeth in annoyance. Yes, there was _always_ a catch. "You will need to answer just one question. If I suspect you are not telling the truth, I will simply force you to swallow Veritaserum, so I advise you to not attempt to lie to me, Elric."

Ed nodded grudgingly. "Shoot."

It was Snape's turn to narrow his eyes. "Okay, Elric," he sneered, "Can you explain to me why Draco Malfoy approached me during our Potions lesson today _sheet-white_ and _quaking in his boots_, shortly after exchanging a few brief words with you?"

A blonde eyebrow rose in surprise. _Is he honestly asking me that? He couldn't have used his free pass to ask me something more... important?_ "Yeah," Ed huffed nonchalantly, brushing a stray hair out of his vision. "I punched him."

Snape sighed irritably. "We all know that, Elric. I was _there_, if you'd forgotten. As was most of the student population. Tell me the _real_ reason."

Ed snorted in amusement and mild disbelief. _This man is beyond me._ "I'd be happy to supply you with the real reason, which happens to be that _I punched him_."

"Again?" Snape inquired, his tone of voice carefully neutral.

"Yep. Just this afternoon, actually. It was the first time we'd run into each other since then, so I'm not surprised he acted that way."

There was a extended silence between them as Snape considered this - _Well actually, I have no fucking clue what he's thinking, that mysterious bastard _- and just as Ed was beginning to fidget with boredom, the black-haired man shooed him out of his office irritably.

"Leave, Elric. You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Ed called, throwing a mock salute over his shoulder as he sauntered out. But before he reached the door, he inhaled sharply as he realised his mistake. _I am not in Central Headquarters. I do not address the teachers as 'sir' here and I most definitely do _not_ salute to them!_

He stiffly glanced over an automail shoulder, but Snape's behaviour did not seem like that of a suspicious man, as he was quickly burying himself in papers (_God he looks so like Mustang right now_) and muttering curses under his breath.

Ed quickly leapt out of the room and sprinted down the stone corridor towards the Gryffindor dorms, his heart still pounding in his ears from adrenaline and panic. He took a good few deep breaths, not slowing an inch as he rounded another corner.

_Damn, that was close._

* * *

><p>"And so, as you might have already noticed, twenty-six years later in 1256, the Great Wizard Algernon..." The ghost of a teacher droned on and on, and within the first ten minutes not a single student was listening (as per usual for History of Magic classes). Ed himself was teetering on the brink of sleep, its dark, translucent hands beckoning him and whispering silent encouragements from just outside of himself, and just as his eyelids slipped closed under the heavy weight of fatigue, a note noisily dropped itself on his desk.<p>

Ed grumbled a few harsh profanities under his breath, before untangling his loose hair from his arms, hissing when a few strands caught in the joints of his automail.

After he'd finally managed to disentangle himself, he reached cautiously for the folded paper note, opening it with thumb and forefinger as if it was poisonous. He pulled a nasty face when he noticed the moving sketch. _It's just not natural, for drawings to move like that_.

However, he entirely forgot his disgust at the magical item when he noticed _what_, exactly, the drawing portrayed; in fact, he forgot _everything else_ in that moment, squinting at the obnoxious lack of drawing talent as if it had grown a second head (although knowing these wizards and their magical ways, he wouldn't have been surprised if it _had_).

Because on that crumpled parchment was an untidy scrawl of a black-clad blonde (who he assumed was himself) and a a certain white-blonde Ravenclaw _kissing_.

* * *

><p>Ron's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. "<em>Another <em>one?" he squeaked.

The alchemist nodded wearily, hands, as always, slipped casually into his leather pockets.

"Well..." Ron laughed breathlessly. "I mean, you two do hang around together an awful lot, but you spend just as much time with 'Mione, and no one's so much as blinked at that..." He shrugged. "I guess it's cause it's just so _strange_ that someone would willingly spend that much time with Loony Lovegood."

The brunette slapped him - _hard_ - on the left shoulder, and Ron cringed in pain. "'Mione! What was that for?"

"Don't be rude," she replied somewhat snootily. "Luna is a person like the rest of us. She's just a little..."

"_Bonkers?_" Ron suggested not-so-helpfully. He earned himself another painful whack.

"No, Ronald. She's just _different_, that's all. And maybe it's because Ed is also rather different that they apparently get along quite well." She shot Ed what he supposed was meant to be a sympathetic glance. "One shouldn't be condemned to a friend-less life of teasing simply because they don't fit into the social norm."

"Speaking from experience, I imag-_ow ow ow ow_ okay I get it, 'Mione, please stop hitting me."

Ed hummed in quiet thought as he wandered along beside his (irritatingly tall) new friends. He'd tuned out the heated discussion quite a while ago, and was currently in the midst of comparing and analysing the possible circles that could be used to aid a magical time-travel.

Just at the moment where Ed thought he _might_ have a miniscule hint as to what the _hell_ it might include, one of said tall friends (Ed refused to acknowledge the fact that the black-haired teen was in fact average height) cast him an inquiring look before cautiously verbalising his curiosity. "What are you thinking about?"

A glance was shot at the emerald-eyed boy to his right. Ed and Harry had both been lost in their own thoughts as Ron and Hermione had continued to argue and had found themselves drifting along behind, separated from the others.

"Nothing much."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, those frown lines really look like nothing much, Ed."

Ed looked taken aback. "What frown lines? I don't have frown lines! I'm only eigh-" he abruptly cut himself off with a stutter. "F-fifteen..."

The atmosphere between the two boys had suddenly become thick and heavy, and Ed resisted a shiver at the sudden drop in temperature.

"You may be short," Harry murmured quietly (ignoring the deep growl from his left), after a pause that was simply _too long_ to be safe, "but I would have thought you'd be far too tall to be _eight years old_, Ed."

Ed retained a stiff silence.

"That's what you were going to say, right?" Harry continued in a low voice, each syllable sprouting in his throat and ever so slowly _growing growing growing_ out past his lips and into the chilly air beyond. That goddamn _intelligent_ tone of voice had Ed in a mental panic - _Ohgoddoesheknow_ - because he could _hear_ it in his voice, even if Harry's expression remained carefully blank and unseeing, staring ahead of him.

"That's what you were going to say," he murmured, "because I know for a fact you _definitely weren't_ going to say 'eighteen'." His hard, stony gaze captured Ed's and suddenly the alchemist remembered that it was impossible to make it out of as many life-or-death situations as Harry had without having a _fucking good brain_.

"That's not..." Ed muttered, only the waver in his voice giving away his present state of _oh shit oh shit oh shit_.

Out of the blue, Harry firmly took Ed's automail shoulder in his hand, preventing Ed from leaving and continuing his way to class. The wizard's grip was so hard that Ed would have to inflict pain on him in order to get out of his hold. Ed did _not_ want to be forced into that situation - Harry was his _friend_ - but _by God_ he would hit him if he had to.

"I want an explanation, Ed."


	12. Eleven: Too Much Information

**HEY GUYS**

**Yeah look see I _can_ do quick(-ish) updates.**

**I warn you of the long monologues in this chapter and non-existent plotline. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.**

**Also I seem to be incapable of actually putting emotion into an emotional scene because I suck, so also be warned of the non-emotional pathetic scenes. otl**

**Disclaimer~**

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven - Too Much Information<strong>

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><p>Mindless whispers echoed around the Great Hall like parrot chatter that morning. All were the same - <em>'You-Know-Who is back' <em>- but Ed couldn't bring himself to care. He had no clue who this 'You-Know-Who' guy is or why he had such a stupid nickname and frankly he had more pressing matters to concentrate on.

"You!" a voice rudely yelled in his direction from the Hufflepuff table. Ed blinked, taken aback, and cast his gaze over the studdent population in an attempt to find the person responsible.

It was difficult to miss her. A bright tuft of turquoise hair stood atop her head, and she was wearing the wrong tie. A purple-painted nail was pointed accusingly at him as she thoughtfully provided an explanation. "It was you, wasn't it, transfer student? I know _The Quibbler_'s editor is Loony Lovegood's father, and you two have been awful close recently. You manipulated Lovegood to make her father publish false stories about You-Know-Who's return!"

Ed, for once in his lifetime, was rendered completely and utterly speechless. He was suddenly aware of the fact that he was eating breakfast with Luna that morning at the Ravenclaw table in an attempt to avoid Harry, and realised there was not much he could say in his defence.

He was again reminded of the slightly worrying - and frankly painful - events that had taken place three days ago.

* * *

><p><em>"I want an explanation, Ed."<em>

_Ed gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry, but I can't give you one."_

_The sharp emerald eyes narrowed at the response, but Harry's grip loosened on Ed's shoulder, and he simply sighed. "Look, Ed, at the risk of sounding naïve, I thought we were friends. I understand that everyone has their secrets, but if your secret is so big you've lied about your age - then who knows what else you've been lying about? Maybe you've completely faked your identity. And to be honest, I'm not comfortable knowing that there's some guy in my life who I might know literally nothing about. Who knows, you could be dangerous. Hell, you could be one of Voldemort's lackeys for all I know! I just need _something_, Ed; something to tell me that I can trust you."_

_The rest of the group was out of sight now, and the blonde slumped wearily against the stone wall. Suddenly, the age of the boy - no, _man_ - was shockingly obvious, and Harry wondered how he'd ever been fooled._

_"I haven't really _lied_ about much," Ed hesitantly started, keeping eye contact with the ground and his voice carefully controlled. "Yeah, I'm eighteen, not fifteen... but my name is Edward Elric, I'm here to study, and I'm no enemy of yours."_

_Harry waited patiently. He could tell Ed was deciding exactly how much to tell him._

_"Look, Harry... You gotta promise not to say anything, okay? I mean, Dumbledore knows it all, but no one else really knows anything and it's got to stay that way." Ed's eyes were serious, all traces of jest gone, and Harry nodded definitely, preparing himself for any and all possibilities of what Ed could say next._

_Ed inhaled. "I'm here undercover. I was sent here by my... boss, so that I can research some stuff to benefit the guys back home. But I'm one of the 'good guys', okay? I really don't mean anyone any harm, but I hope you can understand why I had to disguise some stuff, otherwise..."_

_"Otherwise people would ask questions. Right." Harry seemed complacent enough, though Ed still shrunk slightly under his harsh gaze. It was suspicious and searching, and the opposite of his previous soft, friendly expression._

_"I'm sorry."_

_"Yeah, okay. Whatever," Harry murmured softly, sighing as he ran a hand absentmindedly through his jet-black locks. "I'm glad you could tell me, even a bit... Although how am I to know you're not lying about that, too?" he added with a chuckle, and though it seemed good-hearted enough, Ed still felt a prick of hurt at the distrustful attitude. _

Damn it all_, Ed thought as Harry strolled away to his next lesson, and he cursed his habit of getting attached to people._

* * *

><p>He winced at the memory. He hadn't been that vulnerable to someone in quite a while.<p>

Ed's ear twitched at a familiar voice - the very voice he'd been avoiding at all costs for the past three days - exclaim loudly, "Haven't I been saying this all along?"

He watched as Harry slumped forward in his seat in frustration, and as Ron rubbed his back in a gesture of comfort. Ed had never been the best at lipreading, though he saw the words form on Harry's lips over and over - _"I knew it I knew it I knew it" - _and wondered who the hell could have the whole school in such a state.

_Well, whoever it is, it's worth telling Mustang about them._

As if by magic, at that moment, his owl gracelessly dropped a sharp, papery object on his plate, flapping his wings and zooming out of the hall like a dizzy chicken.

Batting away the irritation at the incompetent animal, he carelessly broke the seal and tugged the short but sweet letter out of its envelope.

_My dear Fullmetal,_

_I'm sure the only reason you received a Valentine at all was because you look so weird that girls mistook you for being somewhat attractive. If you had been back in Amestris, I doubt any of the female population would have made that mistake._

_As well as being far more attractive than you, I also bear far more patience. I can wait for new information regarding the possibilites and limits of interspacial travel._

_- Colonel Roy Mustang_

_P.S. Alphonse requested I include this as neither he nor Mrs Elric were able to send you a letter as they're currently busy moving house._

Ed raised an eyebrow at the afternote. _What's 'this'?_ He rooted around in the military envelope, and his golden eyes widened briefly as his fingers stroked something smooth and shiny. He carefully slid the slip of paper out, and his heart melted as he took in the vision before him.

It was a photograph of his dear brother and Winry on their wedding day, both wearing expressions of clear euphoria and looking goddamn beautiful.

He fought a stray tear as he realised he _had_ missed the wedding after all, just as Al had warned him not to. _March already... Heh, time flies when you're having fun_, he thought sarcastically.

"Uwaaah..." a breathy voice whispered in awe from his left.

Ed jumped slightly, though couldn't resist the wide grin as pride shot through his small frame.

"Who's wedding...?" Luna questioned, reaching meekly for the slightly bent paper to get a better look. Ed handed it over, though continued to stare longingly at it over the blonde girl's shoulder.

"My brother and my best friend," he chuckled softly, his smile tinted with melancholy.

Luna sighed - happily or sadly, Ed couldn't tell - and turned to the boy beside her, delicately handing back the photo as if it might break at the slightest of touches. "They look very happy."

Ed nodded enthusiastically. "I'm sure they are. They've loved each other since childhood."

"That's so romantic," Luna giggled, and the sparkle in her cerulean irises caused Ed's heart to jolt.

"I... I suppose it is," he murmured, a small grin matching the younger girl's spreading on his face.

The following silence between them was almost tangible, thick with something that Ed couldn't describe that made the blood pool in his cheeks and his calloused hands tremble.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, Ed was still undecided), the lull in conversation was broken as a Gryffindor - Ed strongly suspected Ron - knocked a tin bowl full of various magical fruits onto the granite floor with a harsh, squeaky _crash_.

Laughter ensued throughout the hall and gradually it also infected the two short blondes.

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><p><em>Colonel Bastard<em>,

Ed paused, nibbling absent-mindedly on the end of Harry's borrowed pen as he considered which code to use.

_Believe it or not, it's not me who's weird here, it's everyone else. They walk around in capes and wave sticks around._

_And for your own safety, I'm going to ignore that attractiveness comment._

Ed's eyes narrowed minutely as he was reminded of the ugly irritation that sentence had ignited within him.

_Everyone here is going insane over some 'You-Know-Who' guy who's apparently back from somewhere. And there's also this bitch called Umbridge who makes students write lines that etch the words into their skin with quills that use their own blood as ink, and she's a total creep. Plus she works for some fucked up government._

_Although there isn't really anything mission-related to tell you about, as I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to continue my research. I do have loads of books lined up to read, though, so as soon as I get round to it I'll report what I find out. _

_- FMA_

Satisfied, he roughly folded up the parchment and inserted it into Mustang's envelope, re-sealing it with selotape and shoving it angrily at his uncooperative owl. "No, you stupid animal, stop sleeping and deliver my bloody letter," he mumbled.

Eventually, the owl - which he'd impulsively named 'Mustang Jr.' after a loud argument with it over whether it was actually going to give him his mail or not - finally flapped out of the Owlery, squawking irritably at him. Ed rested his elbows on the balcony railings, watching it gradually fade out into the distant, dark night with eyes half-lidded with boredom and fatigue.

An icy shiver crawled over his bare arms and pinched his rough skin, though Ed was oblivious to the chilly spring air, his sharp mind lost among the midnight clouds as he fidgeted restlessly.

The event at breakfast had really been bothering him; he hadn't been able to concentrate during any of his classes today, which was unusual for him. What was even more shocking, however, was his following inability to consume lunch or dinner. He hadn't even noticed the twinges of pain in his gut at the lack of food, for his mind was totally focused on just one thing; something that totally bemused Ed, and something whose unfamiliarity was very disconcerting for the young man.

Love.

Ed had always been a man of science. Formulae, equations and logic ruled over him, and he worshipped the laws of nature and physics religiously. He had spent his life studying how the world works through precise calculations. To him, the world was painted in black and white; things were either correct or incorrect, right or wrong; and, failing that, simply theoretical, providing a comfortable grey area for unknown material.

Recently, however, he'd been slightly unnerved. Certain events involving a certain blonde had triggered certain emotions and decisions that were far from logical. Ed knew that whatever he was feeling wasn't _love_; but he was also fully aware of the fact that it was far more than something platonic. This was not Ed's way; he had never been swayed by something like mere attraction before. Sure, he openly acknowledged that Winry and some of the women he worked with were very pretty, but he'd never felt anything more than that about it. They were simply people in his life, like Al and Mustang and Havoc.

Ed's expression drooped with many emotions that he couldn't put into words. He sighed in something like acceptance and something like defeat as he realised that for all his scientific and alchemical knowledge and prowess, he was still just an eighteen-year-old boy, clumsy and inexperienced in the simultaneously exciting and terrifying world of romance that painted his monochromatic life in shades of pink and blue.

_Dammit, Luna._

* * *

><p>"What the hell is this?" Ed asked no one in particular, his golden gaze fixed on the gargoyle leering at him from its place atop a marble column.<p>

The blonde teen jerked back a step as the statue suddenly moved, sliding smoothly out of his way and revealing a spiral staircase.

"Tch..." Ed shook his head in mild amusement at the strange Headmaster's antics as he swiftly ascended the steps, leaping lithely over two or three at a time.

"Welcome," a kind voice echoed as Ed's knuckles were almost touching the grand oak doors. "Come in, Mr. Elric."

Ed placed a cautious foot into the impressive - although odd - office, and the other quickly followed suit. "Yo," he greeted casually.

Dumbledore smiled, his young eyes twinkling at the alchemist from behind his desk. "What is it you wish to see me for?"

Ed strolled up to the looming piece of furniture and placed himself in a nearby seat. "Was just wondering who this 'You-Know-Who' character is. Everyone's in a crazy panic and I feel like I should be too, because he must be pretty bad to have an effect like that on people." Ed pulled a face. "And what's with the lame nickname, anyway?"

A croaky chuckle wheezed through the old man's lips. "His real name - not his _original_ name, mind you, though he prefers to forget that now - is Voldemort. However, it has become a taboo of sorts to mention his name aloud because he is so revered and feared, and so he is commonly known as 'You-Know-Who' or 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. I don't imagine you're the type of person to honour that tradition - rather like Harry."

Ed winced.

"Still, if you _must_ call him by his name, please at least _try_ to be subtle about it, otherwise you'll just attract more attention than you've already gained." The wizard shot Ed a meaningful look, and the blonde squirmed in his seat.

Dumbledore breathed deeply as he pushed his halfmoon glasses further up his crooked nose. "Voldemort is possibly one of the most powerful wizards in existence. However, he decided long ago to use his power for evil. To explain briefly, as I'm sure there's something you'd rather be doing than hearing an old man drone on," he smiled amusedly, "Harry Potter is famous because of an encounter he had with Voldemort while only an infant."

A curious golden eyebrow was raised.

"You see, Harry is the only one who Voldemort was unable to kill. The remnants of the Avada Kedavra curse are left as a scar on his forehead. Voldemort now seeks Harry's life. The reason the students were so riled up over such an event was because Voldemort was believed to be dead until today."

Ed opened his mouth, but he was quickly silenced by a wrinkled, ringed finger. "Before you say it has nothing to do with you," Dumbledore began, eliciting a grunt of protest from the young alchemist, "let me assure you that our agreement with your military states you are obliged to prevent to the best of your abilities any harm coming to the school or its students. Voldemort is a threat to not only Harry but the entire student and teacher population, so I would be grateful if you would _make_ it something to do with you."

"Ah, fine," Ed agreed willingly enough, slouching back into the comfy chair and crossing his arms leisurely. "I'll help you with this Voldeward-"

"Voldemort."

"-and his whole 'let's kill people' thing." Ed glanced at the looming bespectacled grandfather clock to his left. "Ah, I need to go."

Dumbledore waved him away amusedly. "Go as you please."

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><p>Ed sighed, his shimmering locks glittering in the evening light as he strolled across the large field. He wasn't quite sure why he was going there again - to relax? To get away from everyone? Avoid Harry?<p>

He frowned in something like resignation, because Ed knew they weren't the reason; but if it wasn't something like _that_, then what _was _it?

A snort and dusty kick of hooves broke him from his reverie, and Ed grinned at the skeletal animal, patting its side fondly as his gaze roamed the surrounding area.

He blinked in surprise as something was hung in the middle of his vision, and he had to lean back for his eyes to properly focus on the object. It was a small lilac drawstring pouch - but that didn't quite matter now, since his shoulder had made contact with something warm behind him.

"They're blueberries," a breathy voice whispered onto his neck, and Ed felt the hairs stand on end where the sound had fallen.

He shivered slightly, belatedly accepting the proffered bag as Luna wandered into the front of his vision. She was smiling.

Ed couldn't resist the tug at his own lips at the sight. He said softly, "Hey, Luna."

There was no reply, but her slender hand paused fractionally as it offered a handful of berries to her favourite thestral, and Ed knew she'd heard.

He emptied the bag into his right hand as he approached a ghostly being. Ed watched with fascination as it ate roughly, though couldn't help the poke in the back of his mind that pestered to know what sort of blueberries had inch-long thorns.

"Ouch," he hissed, automatically drawing his hand away to see the damage. It was rare that he experienced anything other than phantom aches in his automail hand, and he was nervous as he searched the palm for the source of the pain.

Luna gazed over at him, concern seeping into her tone as she asked, "Are you okay?"

Ed nodded as he eyed the thorn wedged in one of the wrist joints. _It must have hit a wire._

As the alchemist poked at it slightly and wondered how he was going to get it out without damaging the wire it was pressing into, two smaller hands appeared in his vision, the smooth pale skin a sharp contrast to his deep silver limb.

Luna took his hand in hers as she too studied the foreign object intensely.

However, before she could properly analyse it, Ed had drawn his hand back as if it had been burned. Luna's eyes were round with surprise and Ed instantly felt a pang of guilt in his gut. "Don't..." he murmured, his automail half-hidden behind his vested back.

The witch's stance faltered - Ed wasn't sure why, or what for - and she attempted, again, to inspect the thorn, but this time slowly and delicately, every motion a silent question to proceed.

Ed gave in, and stared intensely at the girl whose hands he let grasp his prosthetic firmly.

"Why?"

The alchemist almost missed the question entirely it was so quiet, and he found himself unable to respond. He stared down at the lowered head, bent over his hand and avoiding eye contact.

Luna's face creased in something - worry, confusion, hurt - as she breathed, "Why do you get so nervous when I touch your automail?"

Ed's breath hitched in his throat that suddenly felt a little dry.

Luna knew she might be treading on broken glass. "Is... Is it because you are embarrassed of it? Or ashamed of it?"

The words Ed was so used to saying - the same words of mocking denial that spun off his tongue like a fractured movie reel - were somehow lodged in his throat, and he found himself unable to deny the pure truth of her words.

Luna lifted her head, the burning intensity in those glistening cerulean eyes almost enough to knock Ed off his feet. "What is there to be ashamed of? You lost a limb - that is not _shameful_! And even more, you actively did something to _fix_ it; you didn't lose hope and give up! You tried your best to fix the problem and had the strength to stand back up on your own two feet!"

_'Stand up and walk.'_

Rose's image suddenly flashed through Ed's mind as he recalled the event from so long ago. _'Keep going forward. At least you have two strong legs to get you there.'_

He blinked slowly, and realised what a hypocrite he was.

Luna gritted her teeth, tears forming and dripping onto his automail with limp splashes, but the raging emotions in the young girl's eyes drowned their sound out.

"I wouldn't call that _shameful_," she continued in a lower, though considerably shakier tone. "I would call that _admirable_!"

Ed's jaw went slack. The word ricocheted around his head like a loose cannon - _admirable_. No one had ever used a word such as _admirable _to describe his automail before. Sure, he'd heard the lot: strong, useful, scary, convenient, _in_convenient... but never _admirable._

"You..."

"Don't," Luna whispered, her hands trembling horribly by this point as she mimicked Ed's earlier words. "Don't ever feel like that, okay?"

The young man let out a shaky breath as he worried his hair with his free hand nervously. "Okay."

Luna let out a choked sob, freeing his hand only to push herself against Ed's chest and bury her damp face in his neck.

His arms instinctively wrapped around her as she wept openly, a steel heaviness gripping his heart as every muffled cry shot through his chest like a diamond arrow.

"Stupid," he muttered under his breath, and he refused to acknowledge the fact that Luna had certainly heard his voice crack. "Don't cry over me."


End file.
